People Australia

Maurice Andrew (Morrie) Callard (1893-1951) dentist, socialist, trade union leader 

Birth: 26 October 1893 at Richmond, Victoria, and registered as Morris Andrew, son of Victorian-born parents Moysey John Callard (1860-1927), coach builder, and Susan Broadhurst, née Bowden (d.1942). Marriage: 1919 in Melbourne to May Ellen Hogan. They had two sons. Death: 16 June 1951 at Black Rock, Victoria. 

• Member of Victorian Socialist Party at age of 10. Later joined the Australian Labor Party. Was a dental mechanic at Armadale, Victoria, by 1917 and a dentist at Caulfield in 1924. Became honorary secretary of the Dental Workers' Union (Victoria) and was active in gaining it a wages board.
• Organiser of the Victorian branch of the Amalgamated Clothing Trades' Union from 1924 to 1938. From 1939 to 1943 was assistant-secretary to Alf Wallis, general secretary of the Federal Council of Amalgamated Clothing & Allied Trades' Union (AC&ATU). During World War II he was a member of the Clothing Industry Advisory Panel.
• Succeeded Wallis as federal general secretary of AC&ATU in April 1944. Resigned in ill health in January 1951 after revelation of corruption scandal in federal office (misappropriation by a female employee exceeding £4000 who spent the money at the races and on dresses).
• Member of Australia-Soviet Friendship League.
• Opponent, with Wallis, of Industrial Groups within the ALP in 1940s and a close associate of J. B. Chifley and John Curtin.
• A son, Llloyd, was sometime editor of the Westralian Worker in Perth.
• Cause of death: coronary thrombosis, coronary sclerosis and rheumatic carditis.

Sources
Bradon Ellem, In women’s hands? A history of clothing trades unionism in Australia (Sydney, 1989; obituary Labor Call, 28 June 1951, p 4 [https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/250001697]; Age (Melbourne) 30 January 1951, 18 June 1951; Herald (Melbourne) 21 June 1951; Argus (Melbourne), 30 January 1951; Sun (Sydney), 28 July 1949; Voice Summer 1948, Voice c.1951; Australian Clothing Trades Journal April 1940.