People Australia

Maurice Joyce, n.d.

Maurice Michael (Maurie) Joyce (1868-1952) bushworker, opal prospector, driver, trade union official, mayor 

Birth: 6 June 1868 at Tullig, Kilflynn, County Kerry, Ireland, son of Garrett Joy (1828-1889) and Nora, née Buckley (1835-1925. Marriage: 1899 at Richmond, Melbourne, Victoria, to native-born Elizabeth Veronica Slattery (1877-1965). They had two daughters and four sons. Death: 13 August 1952 in Melbourne. Religion: Catholic. 

• Arrived in Queensland in 1886. Itinerant bush worker. Successful in opal prospecting in New South Wales.
• Settled in Melbourne and from about 1906 until his death lived in Richmond. Worked as a packer then driver. Active in the Shop Assistants’ Union. For many years was an organiser for the Carters’ and Drivers’ Union, and sometime secretary, vice president and president. A member of the Trades Hall Council, he was president in 1919 and chairman of the Industrial Disputes Committee.
• President of the Richmond branch of the Australian Labor Party to 1925. Elected to Richmond Municipal Council in September 1916, he was mayor of Richmond from September 1920 to September 1922. Fell out with the Loughnan faction and lost preselection for council in June 1925.
• Unsuccessfully contested preselection for Senate in 1919 and in 1922 was defeated by J. H. Scullin in Labor preselection for the federal seat of Yarra.
• Two sons served in World War II, another became a Jesuit priest and a daughter was a sister of the Faithful Companions of Jesus at their convent at Benalla.

Sources
H. J. Gibbney and Ann G. Smith, A Biographical Register 1788-1939, vol 1, (Canberra, 1987) p 381; Janet McCalman, Struggletown public and private life in Richmond 1900-1965, (Melbourne, 1984), pp 114-115; Punch (Melbourne), 24 June 1920, p 946.