Lloyd Clive McDermott (1 November 1939 – 6 April 2019), also known as Mullenjaiwakka, was an Australian

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...

and

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

player. He was the first

Australian Aboriginal Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...

barrister and the second Aboriginal person to represent his country in rugby union, playing for the

Wallabies A wallaby () is a small or middle-sized macropod native to Australia and New Guinea, with introduced populations in New Zealand, Hawaii, the United Kingdom and other countries. They belong to the same taxonomic family as kangaroos and so ...

against the

New Zealand All Blacks The New Zealand national rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blacks ( mi, Ōpango), represents New Zealand in men's international rugby union, which is considered the country's national sport. The team won the Rugby World Cup in 1987, ...

in 1962. During South Africa's era of

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

, McDermott made a principled decision to withdraw from the squad rather than play as an "

honorary white Honorary whites is a term that was used by the apartheid regime of South Africa to grant some of rights and privileges of whites to those who would otherwise have been treated as non-whites under the Population Registration Act. This was made o ...

" on a subsequent South African tour.

Early life and education

Born on 1 November 1939 at

Eidsvold, Queensland Eidsvold () is a rural town and locality in the North Burnett Region, Queensland, Australia. The town is the self-proclaimed ''Beef Capital of the Burnett'' and is a hub for the regional cattle industry. In the , the locality of Eidsvold had a ...

, McDermott had links to the Mununjali clan and

Wakka Wakka Wakka Wakka, or Waka Waka, people are an Aboriginal Australian community of the state of Queensland. Name "''Wakka''" was assigned the meaning "no" by Western linguists who documented the Wakawaka language. Ethnonyms based on the duplication of ...

people. The son of a farm labourer, Lloyd McDermott's academic and sporting prowess won him a scholarship to attend the

Anglican Church Grammar School The Anglican Church Grammar School (ACGS), formerly the Church of England Grammar School and commonly referred to as Churchie, is an independent, Anglican, day and boarding school for boys, located in East Brisbane, an inner suburb of Brisbane, ...

at East Brisbane.

Rugby career

An outstanding schoolboy athlete, he went on to play on the

wing A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expres ...

for the

Australia national rugby union team The Australia national rugby union team, nicknamed the Wallabies, is the representative national team in the sport of rugby union for the nation of Australia. The team first played at Sydney in 1899, winning their first test match against the ...

, commonly known as the Wallabies. Thus, he became the second

Indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

player to represent Australia. April 2009 (34) Hearsay, The Journal of the Bar Association of Queensland Retrieved 4 March 2017. He played 10 rugby union matches for Queensland against Fiji, France and the

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

"All Blacks" while studying law at the

University of Queensland , mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work , established = , endowment = A$224.3 million , budget = A$2.1 billion , type = Public research university , chancellor = Peter Varghese , vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry , city = B ...

. He then played two Test matches for the Wallabies against the All Blacks in 1962. He refused to participate in a 1963 tour to South Africa, objecting to being classified by the host as an "honorary white" (the only basis on which he could compete against the all-white South African Springbok team under South Africa's

regime). He returned briefly to

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

, playing for the Wynnum Manly club in 1964. He was the second Aboriginal person to represent his country in rugby union, after Cec Ramalli.

Law

Lloyd Clive McDermott became Australia's first

barrister. After graduating in law, he worked in the Commonwealth Deputy Crown Solicitor's Office, and was then admitted as a barrister in

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

. He also completed degrees in

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

and

criminology Criminology (from Latin , "accusation", and Ancient Greek , ''-logia'', from λόγος ''logos'' meaning: "word, reason") is the study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in both the behavioural and so ...

from the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...

and the

University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensive ...

. In later years he practised part-time at the bar, mainly in crime and appellate work. Also a part-time member of the

Mental Health Mental health encompasses emotional, psychological, and social well-being, influencing cognition, perception, and behavior. It likewise determines how an individual handles stress, interpersonal relationships, and decision-making. Mental health ...

Tribunal of New South Wales, he was also a trustee of the New South Wales Bar Association Indigenous Lawyers' Trust.

Community service

Throughout his career, McDermott gave time and energy to promoting opportunities for Indigenous youth, male and female, as founder of the Lloyd McDermott Sports Foundation. In association with the Australian Sports Foundation, the Lloyd McDermott Rugby Development Team works with young people to achieve their dreams through development camps, educational scholarships and mentoring. The team holds camps, training sessions and competitions in association with the

National Centre of Indigenous Excellence The Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation (ILSC) is an Australian federal government statutory authority with national responsibilities to assist Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to acquire land and to manage assets to achieve cultura ...

(NCIE). He also served as an Ambassador for Indigenous Fund of the

Brisbane Boys College (Let Honour Stainless Be) , established = 1902 , type = Independent, single-sex, day and boarding , denomination = Presbyterian and Uniting Church , slogan = , headmaster = André Casson , city = Toowong , state = Queensland , country ...

Personal Life

McDermott had a single daughter, Phillipa McDermott, and a love of Jazz, Motown, and R&B music.

Recognition and legacy

In 2009, at the Bar Association of Queensland Annual Conference, a highlight was the launch of the Mullenjaiwakka Trust for Indigenous Legal Students, named in honour of McDermott (Mullenjaiwakka). The Trust was established to assist Indigenous law students towards a career at the bar. In 2016, McDermott was a recipient of the

Queensland Greats Awards The Queensland Greats Awards recognise outstanding Queenslanders for their years of dedication and contribution to the development of the state and their role in strengthening and shaping the community in Queensland, Australia. The awards are pr ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McDermott, Lloyd 1939 births 2019 deaths People from Queensland People educated at Anglican Church Grammar School University of Queensland alumni 20th-century Australian lawyers Australia international rugby union players Rugby union wings Indigenous Australian rugby union players Rugby union and apartheid Queensland Greats Rugby union players from Queensland 21st-century Australian lawyers