Summary

Canvas banner painted in 1890 for the United Ironworkers' Assistants Society of Victoria, Ballarat Branch. The banner was made for the annual Eight Hour Day procession and features in Museums Victoria's Melbourne Story exhibition.

On 21 April 1856, seven hundred building workers marched through central Melbourne demanding that their employers reduce their working hours from ten to eight hours a day. They succeeded in winning an eight hour day (although still working 6 days per week).

This was to prove an inspiration for other workers in Victoria and the rest of the world and helped establish Victoria's reputation as an industrially-progressive colony.

Melbourne's first eight-hour day procession was held on 12 May 1856, when building workers marched through the city behind a banner declaring Eight Hours Work, Eight Hours Rest, Eight Hours Recreation.

Regional towns also established an annual eight-hour day procession, and it quickly became the biggest and most spectacular annual procession across Victoria.

In 1890, the Ballarat Branch of the United Ironworkers' Assistants Society commissioned Kift & Smith, a local firm of commercial painters and decorators, to make this banner to use in the Ballarat eight-hour day procession.

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