Ernie Judd

Who was Ernie Judd?

Ernest Edward Job Pullin "Ernie" Judd was an Australian bookseller and socialist.

Judd was born at Scrubbing Plain near Forbes to labourer Ernest Augustus Judd and Alice Florence, née Stevens. In 1907 he joined the Socialist Labor Party, a group of Australian followers of American socialist Daniel De Leon who split from the Industrial Workers of the World in 1908, although Judd remained with the IWW. He ran as an independent for the state seats of Wollongong in 1913 and King in 1917, and during World War I was the Municipal Workers' Union delegate to the Labor Council of New South Wales. He opposed conscription and was appointed by the Labor Council as investigator into the imprisonment of IWW members in 1916.

In 1917 Judd stood for the Senate as an independent without success, and also published The War and the Sydney Labor Council. In 1918 he was prosecuted for "making statements prejudicial to recruiting" and was fined in 1919, although he attracted significant publicity, publishing Judd's Speech from the Dock and The Case for the O.B.U. He continued to campaign for socialist causes and contested Sydney at the 1920 state election, receiving only 282 votes. He distanced himself from the Communist Party, which he considered "a front for capitalist spies". During a clash with right-wing demonstrators in the Domain in May 1921 he drew a revolver and was convicted of carrying a firearm.