Brian Charles Fitzpatrick (17 November 1905 – 3 September 1965) was a writer, historian, journalist and one of the founders of the

Australian Council for Civil Liberties Liberty Victoria, officially the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties (VCCL) and formerly Australian Council for Civil Liberties (ACCL), is a civil liberties group based in Victoria, Australia. History The Australian Council for Civil Liberties ...

Life and career

Fitzpatrick was born in

Warrnambool, Victoria Warrnambool (Maar: ''Peetoop'' or ''Wheringkernitch'' or ''Warrnambool'') is a city on the south-western coast of Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 census, Warrnambool had a population of 35,743. Situated on the Princes Highway, Warrnambool (Alla ...

, the seventh of eight children. His father died when Brian was 14 years old. Brian rebelled against his oldest brother's management of the family after his father's death. Fitzpatrick was educated at Essendon High School and then at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

on a scholarship. He graduated Bachelor of Arts (with honours) in 1925 and Master of Arts in 1934. At the university he was a founder and chief of staff of '' Farrago'', the student newspaper, and also a founder of the Melbourne University Labor Club. From 1925 to 1935, he worked as a journalist in London, Sydney and Melbourne. He married Kathleen Fitzpatrick on 28 August 1932, but they separated in 1935. In 1937, Fitzpatrick won the University of Melbourne's Harbison Higinbotham Scholarship with his manuscript of ''British imperialism and Australia 1783–1833''; it was published by George Allen and Unwin in 1939. A sequel, ''The British Empire in Australia: An Economic History, 1834–1939'', was published in 1941. ''A Short History of the Australian Labor Movement'' was published by Rawson's Bookshop, Melbourne in 1940 with a new enlarged edition in 1944. In 1940, Fitzpatrick was appointed a Research Fellow in the Department of History, University of Melbourne. He took leave during the war, working for the Commonwealth Rationing Commission and then the Department of War Organisation of Industry. He resumed his fellowship with the University in 1944 and remained there until 1947. From 1947, Fitzpatrick returned to journalism editing ''The Australian Democrat'', an independent non-party monthly news-review (1947–1950), and ''The Australian News-Review'' (1951–1953). During the 1940s, Fitzpatrick wrote a weekly column "Where do we go from here" in ''

Smith's Weekly ''Smith's Weekly'' was an Australian tabloid newspaper published from 1919 to 1950. It was an independent weekly published in Sydney, but read all over Australia. History The publication took its name from its founder and chief financer Sir ...

''. He broadcast regularly from 3XY during the late 1940s and early 1950s. From 1955 until his death, he wrote a monthly article for ''The Rationalist''. From 1958 also until his death in 1965, he published ''Brian Fitzpatrick's Labor Newsletter: What Is Going on in Australian politics''. He did occasional work for the

Australian Broadcasting Commission The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-owned ...

and the ''

Australian Encyclopaedia The ''Australian Encyclopaedia'' is an encyclopedia focused on Australia. In addition to biographies of notable Australians the coverage includes the geology, flora, fauna as well as the history of the continent. It was first published by Angus a ...

''. Fitzpatrick's economic analyses were presented to the

Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration The Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration was an Australian court that operated from 1904 to 1956 with jurisdiction to hear and arbitrate interstate industrial disputes, and to make awards. It also had the judicial functions of in ...

by the

Australian Council of Trade Unions The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), originally the Australasian Council of Trade Unions, is the largest peak body representing workers in Australia. It is a national trade union centre of 46 affiliated unions and eight trades and la ...

as part of its case in the Basic Wage Enquiry in 1940, and also to the Standard Hours Enquiry in 1949. Fitzpatrick was a foundation member of the

in 1935. He was its general secretary from 1939 until his death in 1965. His children are

Sheila Fitzpatrick Sheila May Fitzpatrick (born June 4, 1941) is an Australian historian, whose main subjects are history of the Soviet Union and history of modern Russia, especially the Stalin era and the Great Purges, of which she proposes a " history from belo ...

, a historian of the Soviet Union, and David P. B. Fitzpatrick, a historian of Ireland.

References

Australian Dictionary of Biography entry

Papers of Brian Fitzpatrick at National Library of Australia
* ''My Father's Daughter: Memories of an Australian Childhood'' by Sheila Fitzpatrick, Melbourne University Press, Carlton(2010) * ''Brian Fitzpatrick. A Radical Life'' by Don Watson, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney (1979) {{DEFAULTSORT:Fitzpatrick Brian 1905 births 1965 deaths Journalists from Melbourne People from Warrnambool University of Melbourne alumni 20th-century Australian historians