People Australia

Bert Chandler, n.d.

Herbert Bovyll (Bert) Chandler (1904-1987) printer, political activist, mayor and Communist 

Birth: 24 October 1904 at West Wyalong, New South Wales, son of David Chandler, and Catherine, née Cusick. Marriage: 1929 at Young, NSW, to Mary Margaret Trudgett. They had three sons and a daughter. Death: 30 October 1987 in a nursing home at Liverpool, Sydney. 

• Distributed Labor literature as boy in West Wyalong. Entered printing trade.
• In 1928 campaign director for Parker Moloney for the Australian Labor Party in Hume electorate. In 1930 secretary of Young ALP directing campaigns for Clarrie Martin.
• 1932 moved to Lithgow where became leader of unemployed, editor of Clarion, secretary of Lithgow branch of ALP and President of Macquarie ALP District Assembly. 1937 elected mayor of Lithgow.
• Became secret member of Communist Party of Australia in the late 1930s. In 1940 contested ALP preselection for Macquarie, losing to Chifley, but remaining friendly with ‘Chif’.
• From 1941 to 1943 was secretary of Hughes-Evans Labor Party. Member of CPA Central Committee from 1944.
• Manager CPA Printery and CPA treasurer who ‘played the capitalist, making investments, dealing with accountants and watching the bottom line’.
• In the 1950s placed under ‘an astounding degree of physical and telephone surveillance…every phone call to and from his office intercepted and noted’.
• In 1953 house was raided, providing ASIO with treasure trove of CPA material and incriminating information re confidential matters from Department of External Affairs.
• Left suddenly for Hong Kong in 1954, where intercepted. Pilloried during Petrov Royal Commission. Following CPA split, became member of Central Commission CPA (Marxist-Leninist).
• Cause of death hypostatic pneumonia, senile dementia, prostatic hypertrophy and moderate renal failure.

Sources
John Playford Doctrinal and strategic problems of the Communist Party of Australia, 1945-1962, PhD thesis ANU, 1962; Malcolm Henry Ellis, The Garden path (Sydney, 1949); Robert Manne, The Petrov affair: politics and espionage, (Sydney, 1987); David McKnight, Australia’s spies and their secrets (St Leonards, NSW, 1994) and Espionage and the roots of the Cold War: the conspiratorial heritage, London, 2002); photo and profile, Tribune (Sydney), 16 December 1943, p 4 [https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/208686859]; Vanguard, 1987.