People Australia

Rupert Lockwood, by Peter Luck, 1979

National Library of Australia, 26325750

Rupert Ernest Lockwood (1908-1997), journalist and Communist

Birth: 10 March 1908 at Natimuk, Victoria, son of native-born parents Alfred Wright Lockwood (1867-1956), printer and newspaper proprietor, and Alice Ellen, née Francis (1873-1913), state school teacher and temperance campaigner. Stepmother (1916) Ida Dorothea, née Klowss (1886-1944), born at Natimuk. Marriage: 4 November 1944 at the district registrar’s office, Chatswood, Sydney, New South Wales, to a divorcée Ethel Bethe (Betty), née Wilson, late Mitchell, a secretary born in Surrey, England (1916-2003). They had three daughters. The marriage ended in divorce. Death: 8 March 1997 in a nursing home at Natimuk. 

• Through the influence of his mother and step-mother he received a religious education that was in part Church of Christ and Lutheran. Educated at Natimuk State School and Wesley College, Melbourne (1924-1926).
• Worked on his father's paper, West Wimmera Mail, then Melbourne Herald 1930-1939, with an overseas break.
• Travelled around the world 1935-1938, working variously for the Singapore Free Press, Straits Times, Reuters, Australian Newspaper Service, Australian Associated Press, pseudonymously for Claude Cockburn's The Week, and contributed feature articles to the Melbourne Herald. His Reuters report on the February 1936 Tokyo military mutiny was a world scoop.
• Reported on the Spanish Civil War for the Herald from behind Republican lines. A left-liberal when he left Australia, his overseas experience radicalised him.
• Upon his return he was employed by the Melbourne Herald as Canberra Press Gallery head. Worked on the executive committee of the Council for Civil liberties, with Brian Fitzpatrick.
• Joined the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) in 1939, moving to Sydney following conflict with Sir Keith Murdoch and worked as foreign editor for the ABC Weekly. Feature writer and sub editor for the Sunday Sun and Fact supplement (1941-1943).
• Journalistic skills also marshalled for progressive and trade union causes, Daily News, The Ironworker, Tribune (associate editor 1943-1948 and 1965-1968 as Moscow correspondent), and Maritime Worker (assistant editor, editor 1952-1985). Helped form a trade union consciousness in the Australian Journalists Association, helping to formulate its pioneering Code of Ethics (1942-1944); honorary membership, Australian Journalists Association 1985.
• High profile member of the CPA (1939-1969) as a pamphleteer, lecturer, orator and broadcaster. Among rank and file communists his word commanded touchstone authority, gaining notoriety during the 1954-1955 Petrov Royal Commission as alleged author of 'Document J'. Ultimately, the Royal Commission on espionage could not prove the existence of a spy ring in Australia.
• Regarded by the Australian intelligence services as an especially dangerous communist because of his wit, charm, intellect and credibility; these same qualities caused sections of the CPA leadership to treat him with reserve. In 1970 he was publicly critical of the 'Aarons leadership' of the CPA.
• Left the CPA after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1969; Australian delegate, Paris Peace Conference 1949 and World Peace Congress Stockholm 1950, including signatory to the declaration against atomic weapons, and was sent by the Congress on a speaking tour through Europe and New Zealand against nuclear weapons 1953.
• Research Officer, Waterside Workers’ Federation. Produced journals for the Federated Ironworkers’ Association, the Seamen’s Union and the Boilermakers’ Society.
• Reported for The Australian on the events of Tiananmen Square.
• Author of Guerilla Paths to Freedom (1942); America Invades Australia (1955): Black Armada (1975); Humour is their Weapon (1985); War on the Waterfront (1987); Ship to Shore (1990).
• Cause of death: renal failure (months), chronic pyelonephritis (years), recurrent urinary infections (years), prostatic hyperplasia (years), ischemic heart disease (years), peripheral vascular disease with amputation of leg (6 years previously). 

Sources
Rupert Lockwood, De Berg tape, National Library of Australia, De B. 1245; Allan Lockwood, Ink in his Veins, 1985; CIB/CIS dossier, Rupert Lockwood, 1939-49, vols 1 & 2, Australian Archives, ACT Office, CRS A6119/40 & CRS A6119/41; Tribune (Sydney), 14 July 1954 & 11 February 1970; Playford thesis; Labour History, No. 72 May 1997 pp 248-251; Illawarra Unity, Vol. 1 No. 2 1997 pp 36-38; Maritime Worker, August 1985 p.27, 29; Sydney Morning Herald ‘Good Weekend’, 1 November 1995 p 51, 11 March 1997; Australian, 12 March 1997 p 14.