People Australia

Don McLeod at the 1946 Aboriginal strikers' camp, The Twelve Mile, near Port Hedland, Western Australia

State Library of Western Australia, BA3521/1

Donald William (Don) McLeod (1908-99) prospector, community activist and Communist

Birth: 8 May 1908 at Meekatharra, Western Australia, son of Tasmanian-born William Henry McLeod (1875-1932), miner, and Hannah Jane, née Morrison (1872-1912), born at Beverley, WA. Unmarried: Death: 13 April 1999 at Perth, WA. 

• Born into a family of prospectors. Boarded in a convent in Geraldon, Western Australia, when his mother died. Left school about 1923.
• Prospected in the Pilbara region of WA. Worked as a mechanic and contractor around mining towns; station hand; worked on wharves. Studied politics and law at nights. He was a voracious autodidact who corresponded with Gandhi, Nehru and Paul Robeson.
• McLeod was a member of the Communist Party of Australia during World War II; mentioned in Document J. of the Petrov Royal Commission.
• Kim Collard, aboriginal studies at Curtin University, stated that Don was one of the pioneers of Aboriginal activism even though not Aboriginal himself. He helped in unifying Aboriginal action in improving wages and conditions on pastoral properties in the north-west of WA by making them aware that they were entitled to more with strike action starting in May 1946.
• He was arrested and held in custody for two weeks, including being locked in chains for enticing people to strike. He was sentenced to three months imprisonment but was released after public protest.
• Set up an aboriginal land company, Nomads Pty Ltd and Nomad Foundation, a non-profit organisation; bought with friends (sometimes known as McLeod’s mob) Strelley Station, east of Port Hedland, Lalla Rookh Station and Waralong Station, by the 1970s. At Strelley they set up a bilingual community school to assist with maintaining the main language of Ngyangumarta.
• Established a resident clinic. Set up companies to use corporate law against activities of native welfare officials which included attempting to make some Aborigines Wards of the State.
• Arrested, he challenged to the High Court of Australia the WA native protection law up to the 1950s forbidding white people from approaching within five chains (100 metres) of a congregation of two or more Aborigines. Fought the State government up to High Court level over what he viewed as illegal excising in 1905 Section 70 of WA’s original 1889 Constitution reserving 1 per cent of gross State revenue for Aborigines. Active in Noonkanbah protests in the 1980s.
• Moved to Perth later in life when his health was failing. 

Sources
Sydney Morning Herald, 24 April 1999, 3 May 1999, 8 May 1999; Michael Hess, 'The Pilbara Aboriginal Pastoral Worker: Uprising of 1946', Paper 5, Australia-Canada Labour History Conference, Sydney, University of New South Wales, December 1988.