After Fitzsimmons joined the Victorian Post Office and Telegraph Department as a letter server in 1975, and by the 1890s had worked his way up to the position of clerk.

[2] At the Prahran branch of the ANA he did not serve as president—the usual point of departure for the chief presidency—but as secretary, with responsibility for fees and membership.

[7] 1894 was a past master to the Windsor Masonic Lodge[8] and was chaplain to the lodge for 30 years The 1894 ANA Warrnambool Conference passed a series of radical motions adopting as ANA "planks" a tax on the unimproved value of land, a minimum wage for workers in public utilities, and full adult suffrage.

George Fitzsimmons was elected Chief President at the head of a board containing a majority of men who had initiated or actively supported these motions.

Fitzsimmons was not personally inclined to be radical, but he stood with his board and ignored calls to rescind the resolutions,[9] while taking no action to promote them.