Keith Dowding (activist)

Keith McCallum Dowding

AM (21 July 1911 – 26 August 2008) was an Australian minister and left-wing activist who was the father of Western Australian Premier Peter Dowding

Dowding was born in

Murrumbeena, he worked in Scotland with George MacLeod. Marjorie died during this period, survived by the couple's eight-year-old son, Peter.^[2]

In 1951, he returned to Australia, where he married Marjorie Lazarus, a Jewish widow. The couple settled in Woollahra, where the Dowding manse became a central meeting place for the Australian Labor Party's left faction, including Les Haylen, Eddie Ward and H. V. Evatt. Dowding was also involved in the Petrov Affair, becoming the confidant and spiritual advisor of Alan Dalziel, one of Evatt's staffers who was accused of being a Soviet spy. Following Dalziel's acquittal, Dowding moved to Perth, becoming minister at Ross Memorial Church. He ran as the Labor candidate for Swan in 1958, but by 1961 his views were outside the Labor mainstream and he was expelled from the party in 1962 for opposing the White Australia policy.^[2]

Dowding was later readmitted to the Labor Party, becoming its senior WA vice-president and a life member; he was also readmitted to the

Save the Children Fund, in the 1960s.^[2]

References

^ Australia, World War II Military Service Records, 1939-1945; Second Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1939-1947. National Archives of Australia.
^ ^a ^b ^c McNaughton, Jenny; Stephens, Tony (7 October 2008). "Crusader for politics of good". The Sydney Morning Herald.
^ "MP Historical Data: Peter M'Callum Dowding". Parliament of Western Australia. Retrieved 13 June 2017.