Maurice Blackburn
Australian lawyer and politician (1880-1944)
Maurice McCrae Blackburn (19 November 1880 – 31 March 1944) was an Australian politician and socialist lawyer, noted for his protection of the interests of workers and the establishment of the legal firm known as Maurice Blackburn Lawyers.
Early life
Blackburn was born on 19 November 1880 in Inglewood, Victoria. He was the son of Thomasann Cole (née McCrae) and Maurice Blackburn. His father, a bank manager, was the son of architect James Blackburn.
Following the death of his father in 1887, Blackburn and his mother moved to Melbourne where he was educated at Melbourne Grammar School, matriculating in 1896. He attended the University of Melbourne, graduating in arts and law in 1909, and began to practise as a lawyer a year later. In the same year, he also became a member of the Victorian Socialist Party and was soon editing its newspaper, The Socialist. Later, in about 1908, he joined the Australian Labor Party.
Legal career
Blackburn established the firm Maurice Blackburn & Co. in 1919, dealing primarily in trade union law and civil liberties cases.
“Maurice Blackburn” enters the record as australian lawyer and politician (1880-1944). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Maurice, Blackburn and Australian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6792892. VIAF identifies the subject as 92388743. The Library of Congress control number is no2012098551. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1880, 1944, 1887 and 1896.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maurice Blackburn” 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.