Victorian Trades Hall: The People’s Palace
***FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE POINT, 2023***
Victoria’s grandest 19th century buildings are hard to miss. The “biggest and most extravagant” structure in most towns and cities in the days before stadiums and skyscrapers were Town Halls, and most are still imposing in the 21st century.
These structures were often neoclassical in style – think dramatic, large-scale structures keen on Greek columns – and they were built for the public. Town Halls maintained birth, death, and marriage records, housed public servants, and hosted most important public events.
The Victorian Trades Hall building on Lygon Street Carlton is the Town Hall of the working class. It’s the world’s oldest continually functioning trade union building, dating back to 1859.
Its genesis lay in the riches brought by Australia’s gold rushes, which inflated the population from 437,665 in 1851 to 1,168,149 in 1861 and made Melbourne one of the world’s most wealthy cities. The University of Melbourne Archives reports that during the resulting construction boom “great buildings including Parliament House, the State Library, Customs House and the Melbourne Town Hall were planned and built astoundingly rapidly, fuelled by the price of gold and the influx of migrants looking for work at any cost”.
Peter Glenane / ArchitectureAu
Many of those new migrants were British and Irish radicals “experienced in labour organisation (and) protest techniques, who began to campaign for solidarity” among what they called “the true pioneers of the colony… the producing classes.”
“Often forced to work twelve- or fourteen-hour days, these labourers united to achieve better working conditions, first in the construction industry and then farther afield.
“Even before the eight-hour day was achieved (1856), unions were beginning to consider producing a building, for healthy recreation and education for the labouring men, and for meetings of the trade unions.”
On 3 June 1858, a major event raised funds for the construction of that building, intended to be “a place where workmen may their minds engage, to useful purpose o’er the printed page…(a) people’s palace… built and own’d by hardy sons of toil.”
Completed in 1859, Melbourne’s original Trades Hall, the first in the world, was a “modest” timber building, financed by workers and built by their own labour, using local materials where possible. It served rallying point for the labour movement and “a place to educate workers and their families”.
The spectacular stone building we see today began construction on 26 January 1874 and expanded throughout the 1880s as unions continued to grow.
The Union Choir serenades Liam Byrne’s union history No Power Greater at its launch at Trades Hall in May 2025
Following the 1882 tailoresses strike, with women organising in “amazing numbers” in their own unions, the Trades Hall built the Female Operatives Hall on Lygon Street. Eventually, these unions merged with the men’s unions.
Trades Hall construction continued in ten stages, mostly between 1876 and 1925. The Female Operatives Hall was demolished in 1960. A multi-story extension was added in 1961. Since 2016, the structure has been undergoing extensive and painstaking refurbishment and restoration. The heritage value of the Hall, and the associated 8 Hour Day Monument, were recognised by their inclusion on the Register of the National Trust and the Historic Buildings Register.
Melbourne University Archives say the “great stone building hosted events that would shape Australia’s history”: massive industrial strikes in the 1880s; anti-conscription campaigns during World War One; anti-immigration agitation in the 1890s and 1940s; and ongoing fights for better working conditions and wages.
“The Victorian Trades Hall from its inception stood at the centre of the Victorian labour movement: a headquarter for the unions, a launching point for parades and protests, and a location for culture, the arts and education to flourish.”
It has hosted discussion of the Harvester decision of 1907, which established a living wage; the creation of the first Minister for Labor and National Service (later Employment) in 1940; and the establishment of universal health care under the Whitlam Labor government in 1975.
The Worker’s Museum at Trades Hall opened in 2019. It highlights the diverse history of the building, including installations on the minimum wage; strikes and protests; equal pay for women; the communist party; and the fight for fair work during the Great Depression and World War II. The museum reminds us that Trades Hall is the birthplace of organised labour in Australia, the Victorian Labor Party, and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU).
These days, Trades Hall continues its role in arts and culture as an important venue hosting events from the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Melbourne Fringe Festival.
But Trades Hall secretary Luke Hilakari says it remains an “organising space”.
“That’s union language for the work we do bringing workers together talking about the issues that matter and figuring out as a collective what we’re going to do about the problems that we’re all facing.
“Workers having been having discussions here since 1891.”
In a recent farewell interview, Deb James, the just-retired IEU General Secretary and Trades Hall President said seeing a meeting at Trades Hall on a school excursion planted the seed for her later involvement in the union movement.
“I was absolutely blown away by the vibe of the place, the significance of what they were doing, the business that they were conducting… that experience really had an impact on me,” Deb said.
Deb James, left, at Trades Hall in 2023.