Richard Blackburn, from South Australian army/ academic life, key judge on territories' supreme courts and federal court
South Australian Richard Blackburn, who became a judge on the Northen Territory and Australian Captital Territory (chief justice) supreme courts and the Australian federal court, is pictured during a 1984 graduation ceremony at the Australian National University in Canberra where he was appointed chancellor in 1984.
Images courtesy Australian National University photographic services, Main image by Kevin Ginnane
Richard Arthur Blackburn, from a South Australian military and academic background, became a judge of three courts in Australia and eventually chief justice of the Australian Capital Territory. In the 1970s, he decided one of Australia's earliest Aboriginal land rights cases. The annual Sir Richard Blackburn Memorial lectures in Canberra from 1986 honoured his services to the legal community.
Blackburn was born in 1918 at Mount Lofty the Adelaide hills, the son of World War I Victoria Cross winner Arthur Blackburn and Rose Ada Blackburn (née Kelly). His father was a prominent South Australian legal practitioner who was later a commissioner of the commonwealth court of conciliation and arbitration.
Richard Blackburn was educated at St Peter’s College, Adelaide, and lived at St Mark’s College while studying at Adelaide University. He graduated with first class honours in English literature and the John Howard Clark prize for highest place in the final examination. He was chosen as the Rhodes scholar for South Australia in 1940 but in May that year enlisted in the Australian Army for World War II. He served with the Second Australian Imperial Force (2nd AIF) on active service in North Africa and Papua New Guinea until his discharge on 1945 as a captain in th 2/9th Division Cavalry Regiment.
After the war, Blackburn took up his Rhodes scholarship at Magdalen College, Oxford University.. He and another South Australian, the later justice Andrew Wells, became the first British dominion students to be awarded the Eldon law scholarship. With that, he attended Oxford University in 1949 and graduated with a bachelor of civil law and was called to the bar in the United Kingdom in Inner Temple.
Blackburn returned to Australia after his Oxford studies and was admitted as a legal practitioner in South Australia in 1951. From 1950 and 1957, he was the Bonython professor of law at Adelaide University. He married his wife Bryony Helen Dutton Curkeet, daughter of the late Henry Hampden Dutton and Emily Martin Dutton of Analby, Kapunda, South Australia, in 1951 at her brother's home at Anlaby. He became the dean of Adelaide University law Faculty 1951 to 1957 when he left full-time academic life to be a partner in Adelaide law firm Finlaysons. He continued as a faculty member until 1965. His daughter Charlotte and son Tom (a future senior counsel) were born while he was teaching at Adelaide University.
In 1957, he was commissioned as lieutenant colonel in command of the Adelaude University Regiment and promoted to colonel commanding the 1st Battalion Royal South Australia Regiment 1962 to1965. Blackburn was appointed an officer of the British empire (OBE) for military service in 1965.
Blackburn left academic life to be a judge of Northern Territory supreme court 1966. During this time, he also became president of the Arts Council of the Northern Territory. As a Northern Territory judge, Blackburn decided Milirrpum v. Nabalco, the first significant Aboriginal land rights case in Australia.
In 1971, Blackburn became a judge on Australian Capital Territory (ACT) supreme court and a judge on the Australian federal court. He was appointed chief judge (later chief justice) of the ACT supreme court in 1977. He was chairperson of the law reform commission of the Australian Capital Territory 1971 to 1976. As patron of the St John Council for Australian Capital Territory 1981-84, he was made made a commander of the Order of St John of Jerusalem for his service.
Blackburn was knighted for services to the law in 1983 and, the next year, became chancellor of the Australian National University in Canberra. Blackburn retired as ACT chief justice due to ill health in 1985 but was one of three former chief justices appointed to the special commission of inquiry to investigate the conduct of Australian high court justice Lionel Murphy..