Sir Walter Logie Forbes Murdoch, KCMG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Murdoch

Emeritus Professor Sir Walter Logie Forbes Murdoch, KCMG (17 September 1874 – 30 July 1970) was a prominent Australian academic and essayist famous for his intelligence, wit, and humanity. He was a Founding Professor of English and former Chancellor of University of Western Australia in Perth. Murdoch University, also in Perth is named after him. There is a walk dedicated to him on South Wing Level 2 of the Murdoch campus library.

Murdoch was born on 17 September 1874 at Rosehearty, Scotland to Rev. James Murdoch, minister of the Free Church of Scotland, and his wife Helen, née Garden, and he was the youngest of their 14 children. He spent his first decade at Rosehearty and in England and France, and Walter arrived with his family in Melbourne in 1884. He attended Camberwell Grammar School and Scotch College. At the University of Melbourne, as a member of Ormond College, he won first-class honours in logic and philosophy.

Though the last years of Murdoch's long life were spent more or less as a recluse, with increasing deafness and declining eyesight, he remained mentally alert to the end. In 1964 he paid the last of several visits to his beloved Italy. When in the month of his death he was given a bedside message from the premier that the State government was to name its second university after him, he was able to send an appreciative acceptance. He added, sotto voce, 'It had better be a good one!' He died on 30 July 1970, aged 95.

Sir Walter Logie Forbes Murdoch, KCMG (17 September 1874 – 30 July 1970) was a prominent Australian academic and essayist famous for his intelligence and wit. He was a founding professor of English and former Chancellor of the University of Western Australia (UWA) in Perth, Western Australia

A member of the prominent Australian Murdoch family, he was the father of Catherine, later prominent as Dr Catherine King MBE (1904–2000), a radio broadcaster in Western Australia; the uncle of both Sir Keith, a journalist and newspaper executive, and Ivon, a soldier in the Australian Army; and the great uncle of international media proprietor Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch University is named in Sir Walter's honour; as is Murdoch, the suburb surrounding its main campus, located in Perth, Western Australia.

in 1950–51, he vehemently and stalwartly opposed the attempt to outlaw the Communist Party of Australia (CPA). His prominent essay, "I am going to vote No", rebuked Robert Menzies' attempt to eliminate the CPA in the 1951 referendum on that issue. Murdoch wrote that his opposition rested on one principle:[3]

The Government is asking the citizens of Australia to give it powers which I do not believe that any government ought to possess....The question turns on a very simple question. Have we the right to punish a person for his opinions? If we punish anyone for breaking the law of the land, or for conspiring with others to break the law, that is justice; if we punish anyone for holding opinions with which we disagree, that is persecution.

— Walter Murdoch, I am going to vote "No"