James Henry Muirhead 24.4.25–20.7.99
| Author | David Biles |
| Published date | 01 December 1999 |
| Date | 01 December 1999 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/000486589903200302 |
II
10
BIT
UARY
James Henry Muirhead 24.4.25-20.7.99
The Honourable James Muirhead, who died earlier this year, was a significant
contributor
to
the
development
of Australian criminology in a
number
of
different ways. He was
the
first
Acting
Director
of
the
Australian
Institute
of
Criminology,
the
first
National
Commissioner
of
the
Royal
Commission
into
Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, a judge at various times of four different courts, as
well as
the
Administrator of
the
Northern
Territory. He was also a strong family
man, a
staunch
supporter of indigenous peoples, and a very good
and
loyal friend.
At
his
State
Funeral in Darwin aspokesperson for
the
Larrakia people, Mr Bill
Risk, spoke of
the
great respect in
which
Jim Muirhead was
held
by Aboriginal
people as a judge, as the Administrator,
and
as a Royal Commissioner. Former
High
Court
Judge,
the
Honourable
John
Toohey, spoke of his judicial appointments
and
achievements, while one of his sons, Tim Muirhead, spoke movingly of his life from
the
perspective of his family.
I first
met
Jim Muirhead around 1970, perhaps earlier, at
the
annual conferences
of
the
Australian
Crime
Prevention
Council,
then
known
as
the
Australian
Prisoners'
Aid
and After Care Council. He was a Vice President of
the
Council,
later to be President,
and
he was a judge of
the
District
and
Criminal
Court
of
South
Australia.
I was
then
a
lecturer
in
criminology
at
the
University
of
Melbourne, after a stint of eleven years working in prisons in Victoria as an educa
...
tion
officer
and
psychologist. I guess
there
was an element of fascination with each
other's careers
and
we soon became firm friends.
At
the
age of 18 years,
the
former St Peter's College pupil volunteered to
join
the
Australian
Army in World
War
II
and
he saw active service in Papua
New
Guinea.
This
experience may
have
been
influential in his decision to accept an
appointment as an acting judge of
the
Supreme
Court
of Papua
New
Guinea
for a
period
of
five
months
in 1972.
Soon
after his return to
South
Australia he was
invited
to
become
the
first
Acting
Director
of
the
Australian
Institute
of
Criminology following
the
passage of
the
Criminology Research
Act
of 1972.
This
required
him
to move his family to
Canberra
and
then
face
the
daunting tasks of
finding premises for
the
new
independent
statutory authority, learning to cope with
federal bureaucracy, drafting terms
and
conditions for
the
employment
of staff,
selecting
and
appointing staff,
and
guiding
the
new organisation through its first
tentative steps in
the
national
and
international arenas. In all
of
this, through his
personal example and leadership,
he
established an atmosphere
of
courtesy
and
caring, towards
both
staff and visitors, which lasted for many years.
He appointed me to
the
Institute staff in May 1973, but because of my teaching
commitments in Melbourne I was
not
able to start until January of
the
following
year. He made sure, however,
that
Ivisited Canberra
on
a
number
of occasions
between those dates to participate in institute conferences
and
other
meetings,
and
also to arrange housing for my own family.
When
Ieventually started work at
the
institute it was as a Senior Criminologist,
but
within a few weeks Jim Muirhead
THEAUSTRALIAN
AND
NEW
ZEALANDJOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY
VOLUME
32
NUMBER
3 1999
PP.
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