Early Life
Calwell was born in Melbourne. His father was a police officer of Irish descent, and both father and son were active in Melbourne's Irish community (including membership of the Celtic Club). His mother was of Irish-American descent. A gifted high school student, Calwell was a devout Roman Catholic and joined the Australian Labor Party in his youth. Lacking the financial resources to pursue a university education, Calwell read very widely, acquired substantial skill in speaking to audiences, and became a clerk in the Victorian Public Service, in which he worked for the Department of Agriculture and the State Treasury. From 1927 to 1931 he served as President of the Victorian branch of the Australian Public Sector Association (the union representing himself and his colleagues).
Calwell's first marriage was to Margaret Mary Murphy in 1921. She died in 1922, and ten years later, on 29 August 1932, he married Elizabeth (Bessie) Marren, a strong-willed, intelligent and well-read Irishwoman who was social editor of the Catholic weekly newspaper, the Tribune. In 1933 they launched the Irish Review as the official organ of the Victorian Irish Association. Calwell had met Elizabeth at Irish language classes run by the Gaelic League in Melbourne, and retained an interest in and fluency in the language.
Read more about this topic: Arthur Calwell
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“He had long before indulged most unfavourable sentiments of our fellow-subjects in America. For, as early as 1769,... he had said of them, “Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for any thing we allow them short of hanging.””
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“Whoever takes a view of the life of man ... will find it so beset and hemm’d in with obligations of one kind or other, as to leave little room to suspect, that man can live to himself: and so closely has our creator link’d us together ... that we find this bond of mutual dependence ... is too strong to be broke.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)