1855 CE–1856 CE
Australian stonemasons’ campaigns for the eight-hour day
Trabajo y organización laboral · Construcción · Jornada laboral · Sociedades de oficio
Stonemasons’ societies in Sydney secured an eight-hour day in 1855, and Victorian organisations extended the campaign in 1856. The milestone documents negotiation and collective action by a particular trade, not the worldwide origin or universal adoption of the eight-hour day: other sectors and places kept longer hours for decades. Later union histories are valuable evidence but also construct memories of their own victories.
Precision, calendar, and review
- Start
- year · no uncertainty qualifier in this record
- End
- year · no uncertainty qualifier in this record
- Calendar and convention
- Historical-era years; the source calendar is not identified. No conversion of days is assumed.
- Year zero
- The scale goes from 1 BCE to 1 CE without year zero. Changing era names changes labels only.
- Documentary review
- Date not recorded
Reading the date: duration of a process.
Sources
- files02.sl.nsw.gov.au (opens in a new tab)
Source provenance and scope
- Publication date
- Pending verification
- Bibliographic date checked
- 2026-09-23
The correspondence between this reference and individual claims has not yet been itemized.
This record is an editorial synthesis. Consult the sources to check claims and their limits. Chronological relationships alone do not establish causation.