The Lone Wolf’ in Sheep’s Clothing? Maurice Blackburn, the Australian Labor Party and the Limits to Mateship

Abstract

Maurice Blackburn, hero of the 1916–17 anti-conscription campaigns and scourge of the Wren-machine, effective industrial legal counsel and assiduous parliamentary representative, was expelled from the Australian Labor Party for a second time in 1941. Heir to a middle class heritage, Blackburn had grown up in genteel poverty. The former gave him a powerful sense of personal agency, the latter an identification with the poor and underprivileged which led him first to socialism and then the Labor Party. Though widely respected and admired, he was also distrusted by some for his intellectualism, for his background and, ultimately, for his willingness to put principles above Party. In the culture..