David Temple (4 July 1862 - 27 September 1921) was an influential early Australian trade unionist. He was born at Creswick, Victoria, where he became a miner and part-time shearer. In 1886, he became the founder and secretary of the Australian Shearers' Union, in response to a cut in shearing rates, initially largely enrolling and organising members across Victoria on his own. In January 1887, Temple's union merged with smaller shearers unions in New South Wales to form the Amalgamated Shearers' Union of Australasia with Temple as general secretary, which by 1890 had become, according to Clyde Cameron, the "largest and most effective labour organization in Australia". In attributing credit for the union's success, historian Nick Dyrenfurth concluded that "while [William] Spence conceived o