Bill Colbourne
Australian political organiser and trade unionist (1895-1979)
William Regis Colbourne (16 December 1895 – 19 November 1979) was an Australian political organiser and trade unionist. He served as general secretary of the Australian Labor Party (New South Wales Branch) from 1954 to 1969.
Early life
Colbourne was born in Ultimo, New South Wales, as the eleventh of fourteen children born to Mary Ann (née Dinan) and Richard Colbourne. His parents were Irish Catholic immigrants. He was educated at St Benedict's Convent School in Chippendale.
Career
Colbourne worked as a commercial traveller and was also a stand-up comedian in travelling shows. He married a fellow performer, violinist Hyacinthe Burgess, in April 1936, and had three children. Colbourne followed his father into the ALP and in the 1920s became the secretary of the Petersham branch. He regularly served as a delegate to state and federal conferences.
1930s
During the party split of 1931, the ALP Federal Executive expelled the New South Wales branch of the party, dominated by Jack Lang.
“Bill Colbourne” enters the record as australian political organiser and trade unionist (1895-1979). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Bill, Colbourne and Australian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bill Colbourne” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.