William Guthrie Spence (7 August 1846 – 13 December 1926), was an Australian trade union leader and politician, played a leading role in the formation of both Australia's largest union, the Australian Workers' Union, and the Australian Labor Party. Early life Spence was born on the island of Eday in the Orkney Islands, Scotland and migrated to Australia with his family as age six. He had no formal education and worked as a farm labourer in the Wimmera district of Victoria from the age of 13. Later he acquired a gold-mining licence and worked for various mining companies. In 1871, he married Ann Jane Savage. In 1874, Spence was one of a number of militant mine-workers who formed the Amalgamated Miners' Association of Victoria, and he became the union's general secretary in 1882. He led the union into mergers with similar unions in the other Australian colonies, forming the Amalgamated Miners' Association of Australasia. In 1886, he became the first president of the Australian Shearers' Union; he also became president of its successor, the Amalgamated Shearers' Union of Australasia in 1887, and by 1890 most shearers in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales had joined the union and 85% of the shearing sheds were open to union members only. Around 1890, Spence became a strong proponent of Georgism. The Georgist 'Single Tax' proposal was at the time incredibly popular amongst Radical Liberals and the movement was highly influential in the political labour movement, the Australian Labor Party being created through the joint efforts of Single Taxers, socialists and trade unionists. Since the Australian economy was expanding rapidly at this time and there was an acute shortage of labour, the unions were in a strong bargaining position and were able to secure great improvements in the living standards of Australia's rural working class. But a depression which began in 1891 led to acute class conflict as the mine owners and graziers tried to cut wages to remain solvent in the face of falling commodity prices, which the unions resisted. In 1894, Spence led the amalgamation of the miners, shearers and other rural workers into the Australian Workers' Union (AWU), Australia's largest and most powerful union. There were bitter strikes in the maritime and pastoral industries, in which Spence played a leading role, although he was generally a force for moderation in the labour movement. He was the AWU's secretary from