by Lyn Collingwood,  from Bulletin 8 of 2025 (October)

Joseph Ormond Aloysius Bourke junior was the first bursar of the University of New South Wales and an influential figure in its formative years. He and his well-known father were saddled with the same string of first names. Both were often known by their initials, a common practice among professional men. The family lived for a time in Hereford Street, Glebe.

Joseph senior

Joseph senior was born at Albury, the eldest son of Bridget Ethel (née Ormond) and Thomas Aloysius Bourke, Irish-Catholics who married in Victoria in 1873. A building contractor and surveyor born in Tralee in County Kerry, Thomas was declared bankrupt in 1880 but recovered. Of Joseph’s siblings, Thomas Aloysius junior died as a baby in 1885, Reginald Fitzgerald (1886–1966) became a chartered accountant and a Randwick alderman, Cecil Austin Regis (1889–1961) a barrister, and Mary Regis entered Auckland’s Convent of Mercy. Three other sisters also died as spinsters: Reginald’s twin Ethel Catherine (in 1960), Gertrude Margaret (in 1961) and Aileen Alphonsus, a nurse (in 1973).

The only sister to marry was Josephine Vincent who was given a soiree in 1914 in Glebe’s Record Reign Hall prior to her wedding to wealthy timber merchant Paul Mulhearn at St James Church Forest Lodge. The six Mulhearn children (including month-old twins who died in 1916) were all born at Nurse McMahon’s private hospital Calmar on Glebe Point Road. Thomas Ormond, a metallurgist, and Cecil Joseph, a veterinary surgeon educated at Waverley College, enlisted in the Second World War. The former flew with the RAAF and the latter served on home soil. Their widowed mother died in 1955 at Petersham.

‘Joe’ Bourke was educated at Hamilton Catholic School and Wickham Superior Public School before beginning his career in public education as a pupil-teacher at Wallsend and Hamilton, followed by a posting to Newcastle. On a full scholarship, he gained honours in French and Mathematics at the Fort Street Training School and, as an evening student, graduated BA with honours from Sydney University in 1906. He lectured in Mathematics at Sydney Teachers’ College and was the first Secretary of the Sydney branch of the Mathematical Association.

On 24 September 1906 Joseph married Winifred Francis Xavier Maher at St Patrick’s Church, Sydney. Educated in Albury at St Bridget’s Convent, Winifred also had a career in public education, beginning as a pupil-teacher in 1888 at Bull Plain’s provisional school. Her last posting prior to her marriage was Surry Hills South Superior Public School.

The newly-weds settled at 54 Hereford Street Glebe where Mary Mercedes Geraldine was born in 1907 and the second Joseph Ormond Aloysius Bourke on 14 November 1908. After the death of Joseph’s father, Thomas Bourke, at age 69 at Newcastle in September 1907, Joseph’s mother moved with her younger children to 4 Hereford Street, part of Milton Terrace. In 1909 Joseph relocated his family next door, to number six.

In 1911, by which time his family home was Tralee Shaw Street Petersham, Joseph was appointed an assistant inspector of schools. While on an official visit to Albury in this capacity, he suffered a heart attack and died on 24 November 1912. His body was sent by rail from his birth town to Sydney. Following a requiem mass in St James Forest Lodge before a packed congregation, he was buried in Waverley Cemetery. Funds raised by public subscription paid for the funeral, an annual Bourke prize for Mathematics, and a plaque inside the Teachers’ College:

His friends pupils and colleagues in grief & love erected this memorial

He hath outsoared the shadow of our night

Joseph junior

Following her husband’s death, Winifred Bourke returned to teaching and her mother-in-law helped care for the children. Joseph junior rebelled against his grandmother’s strict Catholicism. (Bridget Ethel Bourke died aged 80 in November 1929 at Clashmore Strathfield, the house named for her birthplace in County Waterford. Sisters of the Good Samaritan at Glebe Point visited her during her last illness.)

Joseph junior matriculated from North Sydney Boys’ High School in 1924 with first-class honours in History and English and was placed fifth in the state in the latter subject. The next year he joined the Public Service. While working as a clerk in the Department of the Attorney-General and Justice and later the Licenses <sic> Reduction Board, he studied at Sydney University, graduating BA with Honours in Modern Philosophy in 1929. He was influenced by Professor John Anderson, a champion of free thought.

As president of the evening students’ association, Bourke made his mark as a debater, arguing on topics such as ‘present-day education is progressive and enlightening’ and ‘capitalism in Australia is conducive to liberty’. He co-founded the Labour Club but was expelled after supporting the United Front Against Fascism and identifying himself as pro-communist. His ten-stanza ‘Freedom’ was published in the university journal Hermes:

No darkened state, and no imperial king

Can hold from man his civil rights expressed.

The children of the new dawn hold their swords

Unsheathed, that bloody wrong shall be redressed.

 A committed socialist, Bourke joined the ALP in 1927 and was active in the WEA from 1928. He recited proletarian verse and lectured on topics such as ‘All Literature is Propaganda’ at the Workers Art Club. In 1936 he was appointed acting-secretary of the correspondence courses in the teaching division of the technical education branch of the Department of Public Instruction.

During the Second World War, Bourke worked in the Army Research Unit (with other then radicals John Kerr and James McAuley) and the Commonwealth Department of Supply and Shipping. Postwar, he was an inspector with the Public Service Board and assistant director of the Department of Technical Education. Active in founding the University of Technology (later renamed the University of New South Wales), he became its first bursar in 1954 and held that position until his death. He played an important part in creating a medical school, university union, faculty of arts and residential colleges.

Survived by his second wife, Eva Mary (née Naughton) and their two children, Bourke died of lymphoma on 11 November 1965 at Little Bay. He was buried in Waverley Cemetery near his father and mother (died 5 February 1956). His sister Mary was entombed there after her death on 23 January 1990. She had also worked as a public servant, beginning in 1925 as a shorthand typist with the Main Roads Board.

J O A Bourke junior is commemorated by a fountain at the University of New South Wales.

Notes: 1. When Bridget Ethel moved to 4 Hereford Street, she was accompanied by Ethel, typiste; Gertrude, saleswoman; Josephine, home duties; Reginald, clerk; and Cecil whose first employment was as a draftsman. They moved to Victoria Road near Allen Street c. 1916 but had left Glebe by 1921. 2. John Joseph Bourke, a clerk, lived with J O A and Winifred Bourke in 1908 at 54 Hereford Street.

Sources: Australian Dictionary of Biography; Births, Deaths and Marriages, Victoria; Find a Grave website; NSW electoral rolls; NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages; NSW State Records; NSW teachers’ rolls; Sands Directories; Trove website.