Michael Durack
{{Short description|Australian politician}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
{{Use Australian English|date=August 2021}}
{{Infobox person
|name = Michael Durack
|image = Michael Patrick Durack, circa 1948.jpg
|image_size =
|caption = Michael Patrick Durack, circa 1948
|birth_date = {{Birth date|1865|07|22|df=yes}}
|birth_place = Grabben Gullen, New South Wales
|death_date = {{Death date and age|1950|9|3|1865|7|22|df=yes}}
|death_place = Perth, Western Australia
|education = St Patrick's College, Goulburn
|occupation = Politician, Western Australian pioneer
|title =
|spouse = Bessie Ida Muriel Johnstone
|parents = Patrick Durack & Mary Costello
|children = Kim Durack, David Durack, Reginald Durack, William Durack, Mary Durack, Elizabeth Durack
|nationality = Australian
}}
Michael Patrick Durack, (22 July 1865 – 3 September 1950) was a pastoralist and pioneer in Queensland and Western Australia, known as "M.P." or to the family as "Miguel". He was the son of Patrick Durack and Mary Costello, both Irish-Australians.{{cite book|last=Bolton|first=G. C.|date=1981|title=Durack, Michael Patrick (1865–1950)|chapter=Michael Patrick Durack (1865–1950) |chapter-url=http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A080410b.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201030025600/http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/durack-michael-patrick-6062|archive-date=30 October 2020|access-date=30 October 2020|website=Australian Dictionary of Biography|publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University }}
Life and career
Durack was educated at St Patrick's College, Goulburn along with his brother, John Wallace.
In 1882, he bought the Archerfield pastoral run consisting of {{convert|8827|acres|km2|order=|abbr=}} in Queensland.{{cite news |date=25 January 1882 |title=Commercial. |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3408626 |accessdate=8 October 2024 |newspaper=The Brisbane Courier |location=Queensland, Australia |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia |volume=XXXVI |issue=7,500 |archive-date=8 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241008021741/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/3408626 |url-status=live }}
In 1882–83, his family went on an expedition to the Kimberley region of Western Australia. On his 21st birthday, he made the first sale of Kimberley cattle to a Halls Creek butcher for £1,200 in raw gold.
In 1894, a new shipping trade was established by Francis Connor and Denis Doherty from Wyndham to Perth. The Durack family became one of the main suppliers in this market, and eventually merged with their shipping agents to form Connor, Doherty & Durack Ltd, which controlled nearly {{convert|6000|mi2|km2|order=flip}} of property on the Western Australia-Northern Territory border. His firm was a major influence on the Kimberley pastoral industry for the next fifty years.
He negotiated a shipment of 3,612 cattle to Natal in 1902, which was long hailed a record overseas consignment of live cattle.
In 1917, he entered the Western Australian Legislative Assembly as the Nationalist Party member for the Kimberley. He became discontented with the Mitchell government, and in 1920 joined the Country Party, subsequently retiring from politics in 1924.
In 1921 M.P. Durack assisted the scientific party which had arrived at Wyndham, Western Australia, for determinations of the north Western Australia border between Western Australia and the Northern Territory.{{cite web
| title = 1921 WA-NT Border Determinations
| publisher = Kununurra Historical Society Inc. (KHS), Kununurra, Western Australia
| year = 2011
| url = http://www.kununurra.org.au/research/1921-wa-nt-border-determinations
| accessdate = 10 January 2012
| archive-date = 19 January 2012
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120119082300/http://www.kununurra.org.au/research/1921-wa-nt-border-determinations
| url-status = dead
}}
Circa 1939, the Connor, Doherty & Durack tract became the subject of the Kimberley Plan to resettle Jewish refugees from Europe. The proposal was vetoed by the Australian government in 1944.
He died on 3 September 1950 and was buried in Karrakatta Cemetery.
The suburb of Durack in Brisbane is named after him, as he was one of the landholders of the Archerfield pastoral station.{{cite QPN|43376|Durack|suburb in City of Brisbane|access-date=6 March 2022}} It was given this name in 1976 following a naming competition in a local newspaper.{{cite book |last=Mynott |first=Wicki |title=150 years: Richlands, Inala & neighbouring suburbs in Brisbane's South West |publisher=Richlands, Inala & Suburbs History Group |year=2009 |page=90}}
Notable family members
= Jerry Galway =
Jerry "Galway" Durack was the youngest son of Michael and Mary and the first to be born in Australia, when the family were still in Queensland. Jerry married Francis Neale, of New South Wales, in 1880.{{Cite news|url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/81803762|title=Obituary|date=24 September 1921|work=The Daily News|access-date=8 October 2024|archive-date=8 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241008021836/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/81803762|url-status=live}}
In 1901, Galway Jerry was killed on his station while most of the family were in Perth.{{Cite news|url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/81007216|title=Murder By Natives|date=26 February 1901|work=The Daily News|access-date=8 October 2024|archive-date=8 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241008021705/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/81007216|url-status=live}} The incident, in which Jerry and Francis's eldest son Patrick was also wounded, and the subsequent chase, capture and trial, made waves across Australia. It was the subject of more than one hundred newspaper articles spread across every corner of the country. Despite this, Francis returned to the station and continued rearing the rest of the family, until it was sold in 1913.
= John "J.P." "Roaring Jack" "Black Jack" Durack =
John Peter William Durack founded the Perth Law Firm Dwyer Durack in 1915{{Cite web|url=https://dwyerdurack.com.au/our-firm/history|title=History of Firm|website=Dwyer Durack|access-date=8 October 2024|archive-date=3 December 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231203050756/https://dwyerdurack.com.au/our-firm/history|url-status=live}} and was born to Jerry "Galway" Durack and Francis Neale in 1888. After John's birth in Ipswich, Queensland, the family relocated to the Kimberly region of Western Australia in 1889. Francis, described as an intellectual woman, insisted her children received a good education and as a result John and his brother Neal traveled from the Kimberley to Perth to attend the Christian Brothers College until 1907 where he excelled in boxing demonstrations and reciting poetry and Shakespeare, as well as receiving the elocution prize from JS Battye.{{Cite news|url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/77312031|title=Christian Bros College|date=13 December 1907|work=The Daily News|access-date=8 October 2024|archive-date=8 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241008021705/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/77312031|url-status=live}} In cricket, he was an all-rounder.{{Cite news|title=College Sports|date=7 May 1906|work=Western Mail}}
After being articled to one ML Moss KC, JP Durack was admitted to the bar in August 1913, and took up practice on Howard Street.{{Cite news|url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/79918585|title=News and Notes|date=3 May 1914|work=The Daily News|access-date=8 October 2024|archive-date=8 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241008021706/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/79918585|url-status=live}} At this time he started using the name "John Peter", as Peter had been his nickname in college, to distinguish himself from his cousin, the identically initialled John Wallace Durack, who also had his office on Howard Street, which meant a lot of misdirected mail, and constant meet-ups to amend this. The name stuck, and he was known as John Peter, or JP forever more, although it seems he was still referred to John William on the odd formal occasion.{{Cite news|url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/46397305|title=King's Counsel|date=7 June 1939|work=The West Australian}} In 1917, JP took leave of his practice to enlist as a serviceman during World War 1.{{Cite news|title=Personal|date=19 March 1917|work=The West Australian}} He served with the 10th Light Horse Brigade in Egypt, Palestine and Syria and by World War 2, he had the rank of Major in the Army Legal Corps.{{Cite news|url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/79422307|title=Kings Counsel|date=6 June 1939|work=The Daily News|access-date=8 October 2024|archive-date=8 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241008021706/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/79422307|url-status=live}}
JP married Pleasance Rowe in April 1922 and lived at "Strathmore" at 18 Chester Street, Subiaco, which was built in 1904 for Walter David Cookes, founder of the Ezywalkin Boot and Shoe Company.{{Cite news|url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/28166203|title=Social notes|date=15 May 1922|work=The West Australian|access-date=8 October 2024|archive-date=8 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241008021746/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/28166203|url-status=live}} Together they had one son, Peter, in 1928.{{Cite news|url=http://www.theage.com.au/national/liberals-go-to-mind-in-1980s-20080717-3gy0.html|title=Liberals 'go to' mind in 1980s|date=17 July 2008|work=The Age|access-date=8 October 2024|archive-date=13 November 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121113212441/http://www.theage.com.au/national/liberals-go-to-mind-in-1980s-20080717-3gy0.html|url-status=live}}
A hobby for JP was hunting, serving as President of the Hunt Club of Western Australia and he and Peter kept horses to ride through Kings Park.{{Cite news|url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/25685695|title=Hunting|date=13 August 1906|work=The West Australian|access-date=8 October 2024|archive-date=8 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241008021707/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/25685695|url-status=live}}
In a long and distinguished legal career, JP Durack took on all kinds of cases with all kinds of people. He represented farmers, tradesmen and unionists, workers, lumpers, bar staff, beleaguered husbands and wives, politicians, store owners and recent migrants. He was involved in divorce, licensing, probate, criminal, litigation and commercial cases. He was appointed a Kings Counsel in June 1939, at the age of fifty. He was also President of the Law Society of Western Australia from 1943 to 1945. Some of the most intriguing cases he was involved in come from the 1950s, including one which went to the Privy Council in London.
JP Durack continued practising law at Dwyer Durack until the 1970s, when he was well into his eighties. He died in 1978.
See also
- Elizabeth Durack
- Mary Durack
- Kings in Grass Castles by Dame Mary Durack, based on the life and times of her grandfather Patrick Durack
References
{{reflist}}
External links
{{commons category|Michael Patrick Durack}}
- {{cite web
| title = 1921 WA-NT Border Determinations
| publisher = Kununurra Historical Society Inc. (KHS), Kununurra, Western Australia
| year = 2011
| url = http://www.kununurra.org.au/research/1921-wa-nt-border-determinations
| accessdate = 10 January 2012}} - This description of the 1921 Kimberley WA/NT border determinations mixes a news article with diary entries from M.P. Durack and photographs from the KHS Hambidge Collection.
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Durack, Michael}}
Category:Australian pastoralists
Category:Explorers of Western Australia
Category:Members of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly
Category:Australian people of Irish descent