People Australia

Alec Robertson [senior] (1889-1965) journalist, trade unionist, radio station manager and public relations officer.

Birth: 21 October 1889 in Brisbane, Queensland, son of Charles (Charlie) Robertson (1863-1926), a school teacher and unionist, born at Greenock, Scotland, and Grace Elizabeth, née Bray (1865-1954). Marriages: (1) 16 October 1913 at Goodna, Queensland, to native-born Jessie Lobban (1889-1955), a music teacher. They had one daughter and two sons. (2) 1966 at Brisbane to Edris Scott Walters (1924-2018), a nurse. Death: 19 September 1965 in Selangor Private Hospital, at Nambour, Queensland. 

• His father taught in schools throughout Queensland and at Thursday Island, rose to become headmaster of Wooloowin State School and was active in the Queensland Teachers’ Union, of which he was twice president.
• Alec entered journalism about 1908 as a reporter with The Courier, Brisbane, and subsequently worked for a period as an industrial columnist with The Daily Mail.
• Foundation member of the Australian Journalists’ Association (AJA). Member of AJA district committee, also vice-president for one year.
• Associated with the foundation of Australia’s first Labour daily, The Standard, Brisbane, in 1912, joining the staff as assistant sub-editor and becoming chief sub-editor in the same year. Subsequently was managing editor of its successor, the Daily Standard.
• Prominent in anti-conscription campaign during World War I.
• President of the AJA Queensland district from 1921 to 1922.
• Robertson resigned from the Daily Standard in 1932. He was manager of Radio Station 4BK, Brisbane, acquired by the Courier-Mail in 1934, until April 1949. Occupation on his death certificate given as “public relations officer”.
• Cause of death: coronary artery occlusion (8 hours) and arteriosclerosis.

Sources
Australasian Journalist, 15 September 1921, 15 February 1926.