Cecil Wallace (Edgar) Williams was born in Alexandria, New South Wales on 11 April 1911. He was an organiser for the Queensland Branch of the Australian Workers’ Union from 1943-1947. In 1957 Williams represented the AWU at the International Labor Organisation conference on metalliferous mining at Geneva, and later toured the United States of America for the Union. Williams became Queensland Branch Secretary and Chairman of Directors of the Australian Workers’ Union in 1960 and President from 1964-1978. He worked on the Queensland Worker Newspaper and is author of Yellow, Green and Red (1967), a book about the AWU and Mount Isa Mining Industry.