Henry Hoyle

Who was Henry Hoyle?

Henry "Harry" Clement Hoyle was an Australian politician and rugby league football administrator of the 1890s and 1900s. A life member of the New South Wales Rugby League, Hoyle is credited with helping to craft the rhetoric justifying its successful split from the New South Wales Rugby Football Union.

The son of a sea captain, Hoyle was educated at a Balmain convent school and Fort Street Public School. At age 10 he began his working life in Balmain with Booth's sawmills. He was apprenticed as a Blacksmith with P N Russell & Co,. then worked at Mort's Dock in 1868. Boyle gained employment for the New South Wales Government Railways in 1876. While there he became a foreman and got married, setting up his house within the St Peter’s, Surry Hills parish, of which he became a leading member.

Hoyle was active in an 1882 iron trade strike. He was a founding member of the Railway and Tramway Service Association of New South Wales, becoming its first president in 1885. In 1890 he was dismissed by the railways for his union activities.

In 1891, as a member of the Protectionist Party, Hoyle was elected as the New South Wales Legislative Assembly's Member for the Electoral district of Redfern.