Esmonde Higgins

He was a prominent figure in the early years of the Communist Party of Australia, serving as editor of its official newspaper and running its agitprop department.

[1] His sister Nettie and brother-in-law Vance Palmer introduced him to the Victorian Socialist Party and Unitarian minister Frederick Sinclaire's Free Religious Fellowship.

[1] Higgins became the director of the Labor Council's Labour Research and Information Bureau and was also the editor of the Workers' Weekly, the Communist Party's official newspaper.

In letters to his former colleagues in England, including Harry Pollitt, he complained about the slow progress of the movement in Australia, stating that he "done no actual research" in three months at the bureau, was writing for a captive audience, and that some of his work was futile.

[3] In August 1925, Higgins resigned his positions to go travelling, working as a teacher in Victoria and Western Australia, including at Wesley College, Perth.

[1] He was re-elected to the central executive in December 1929,[5] but was soon removed on the grounds of ill health and "condemned viciously by the dominant faction" at the party's next congress.

He was assistant director of WEA Sydney from 1950, later returning to the University of Melbourne to complete a Master of Arts in 1954 with a thesis on the Queensland ALP governments of the 1910s and 1920s.