Miles Bourke (20 November 1925 – 13 October 1982) was an Australian farmer who served as the first president of the Victorian Farmers' Federation. He was born in

Warracknabeal Warracknabeal ( ) is a wheatbelt town in the Australian state of Victoria. Situated on the banks of the Yarriambiack Creek, 330 km north-west of Melbourne, it is the business and services centre of the northern Wimmera and southern Mallee d ...

to farmer Michael Thomas Bourke and Lucy, ''née'' Powell. He attended local schools and then

Ballarat Grammar School , motto_translation = Honour Follows Labour , streetaddress = 201 Forest Street, , city = Wendouree , state = Victoria , postcode = 3355 , country = Au ...

. He left school in 1942 to help his mother run their farm (his father had died in 1939). He married Ida Jean Brewster on 15 July 1953, and served on Warracknabeal Shire Council from 1955 to 1976 (as president in 1959 and 1967). In 1963 he was elected to the executive of the Victorian Wheat and Wool-growers' Association (VWWGA), and he was also appointed to the Wheat Advisory Committee and the Victorian Wheat Research Foundation by the state government. From 1965 he was a growers' representative on the Victorian Grain Elevators Board; he also served on the

Australian Wheat Board AWB Limited was a major grain marketing organisation based in Australia. Founded in 1939 by the Government of Australia as the Australian Wheat Board, in 1999 it was sold off by the government, initially to be owned by wheat growers. It was acqu ...

and the

International Labour Organization The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and o ...

's advisory committee on rural development (1974). In 1968 he was closely involved in the merger of the VWWGA with the Australian Primary Producers' Union's Victorian division to form the Victorian Farmers' Union. In 1976 he was appointed senior vice-president of the Australian Wheat-growers' Federation, and in 1979 negotiated the amalgamation of the Victorian Farmers' Union, the Graziers' Association of Victoria and the United Dairy-farmers of Victoria. He became the first president of the resulting entity, known at first as the Victorian Farmers and Graziers Association but later as the Victorian Farmers' Federation. Bourke continued in this role until his collapse at a wheat board meeting in 1982. He died of a

dissecting aneurysm A dissection is a tear within the wall of a blood vessel, which allows blood to separate the wall layers. Usually, a dissection is an arterial wall dissection, but vein wall dissections (VWD) have been documented. By separating a portion of the ...

on 13 October 1982 in South Melbourne, and was buried in Warracknabeal.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bourke, Miles 1925 births 1982 deaths 20th-century Australian farmers People from Warracknabeal Mayors of places in Victoria (state)