[2] He worked in many jobs: as a barber's boy, shop assistant, cordial factory employee, bitumen spreader,[3] and in a fruit packing shed at Merbein in 1919.
[4] He was a delegate to ALP Council meetings from 1928 as the representative of the Breadcarters' Union, and in 1936 became their full-time secretary, and greatly increased the influence of that organisation.
[2] In 1951 he represented Australian workers at the International Labour Organization conference at Geneva, and during that trip attended a garden party at Buckingham Palace, which infuriated some of members of Trades Hall.
[2] He married Muriel Mavis Whiting in 1927; they had two sons: They lived at Goldfinch Avenue, Cowandilla in 1925 and at 6 Le Cornu Street Broadview in 1950.
He had an older brother Walter Henry Shard (c. 1893 – 4 December 1951), born in Bendigo, worked and died in Broken Hill.