AEU/AEF/AUEW (ES) SECTION: Amalgamated Engineering Union/Amalgamated Union of Engineering...

The papers listed below are these accumulated as a District Committee member, District President or union delegate. They do not include the records of the Austin AEU/AEF/AUEW shop stewards which are listed elsewhere. Nor do they include Dick Etheridge's papers as a union branch chairman : these of retained for eventual deposit in a local repository.

Richard (Dick) Etheridge became a member of the AEU in 1940, when he began work at the Longbridge plant of the Austin Motor Co. In 1941 he became an AEU shop Steward and in 1944, convener of the joint shop stewards. In 1946 he was elected to the union's Birmingham District Committee. From January 1965 the Birmingham district was divided in two : Dick Etheridge was elected to the new Birmingham west District Committee and became its first president. He remained District President until his retirement in 1975. From the late 1940s onwards Dick Etheridge was chairman of firstly the Longbridge 3rd and then the Halesowen 2nd branch of the AEU/AEF/AUEW. He was also a delegate to the union's Divisional Committee and, on a number of occasions, to its National Committee, Rules Revision Meeting and Final Appeals Court, as well as to the Trades Union Congress.