A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF EDWIN JAMES BRADY - Mallacoota ...

This position Brady held until the end of the year, or shortly after, when a political
battle developed in the Labor Party over a fiscal issue. Brady backed a section of the
paper’s management which was mainly Protectionist but this proved unwise. Labor
members with Henry George affections, headed by A. Sinclair, hurriedly decided on
an editorial change and Brady lost his position. He also claimed that George Black
wanted the editorial columns to use against John Norton who was assailing him in
“Truth”. George Edwards, the manager of the paper, supported Black and prevented
the composing room from setting up Brady’s copy. Black’s triumph was short-lived
however, for the paper which “Truth” scornfully referred to as a “quasi-Labor League
organ” was wound up, the last issue being 17 November 1894. Brady managed to
save something from the affair, in addition to the experience, by being engaged to
supply “Truth” with weekly copy at ten shillings a column, supplementing his
earnings by other writings, but “the New South Wales press was not notoriously
radical” and he had a rather lean time. 1
Although this experience helped the process of Brady’s gradual disillusionment with
political activity and his “almost religions loyalty to the Labor Cause”, it produced a
larger acquaintanceship with political and journalistic figures. One of these was a
young lady, Creo Stanley, who belonged to the Socialist League. On one occasion
Brady had the necessity, as Secretary, to request her to take the chair at a coming
meeting, gallantly concluding:
If you decide to accede to our request you will receive the honour and
admiration which as Socialists we must naturally feel for our first lady
comrade who takes such an active part in our propaganda. 2
He signed the letter “Yours respectfully and fraternally” but it was doubtful whether
he had brotherhood in mind. \the day after his divorce was finalised he made her Mrs.
Creo Brady.
This second voyage into matrimony lasted only a short time before the couple
separated. Having only Brady’s account of the reasons for the separation, which he
gave as irregular behaviour on his wife’s part, judgment on the matter needs to be
suspended, but as a Catholic, his wife refused to give him a divorce and he remained
legally married to her until her death in 1942. Perhaps it was of Creo he was thinking
when he wrote a short poem:
I loved for what I thought you were,
And not for what you be –
My Soul was but a voyager
Upon a shallow sea.
It is not well that one should make
His goddess out of clay,
From dreams unreal soon to wake
And face the real day.
1 “Lights of Labor”, The Red Objective.
2 Letter Brady to Creo Stanley, 24.3.1891 in National Library
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