The Australian Women's Register

Jean Blackburn took pleasure in the fact that she was born Jean Muir on 14 July, Bastille Day. The great democratic values of freedom, equality and solidarity inspired her ideas and values, and shine through her writings. She was born in 1919 in Melbourne and was educated in the public school system. The fact that, by the age of 21, she had graduated as a BA with Honours in Economics was largely a tribute to her own determination and thirst for knowledge. At the University of Melbourne, Jean joined the Labor Club and then the Communist Party.

She worked as a young woman with the War Office of Industry, before marrying Dick Blackburn and moving to Adelaide. Her work there as a secondary school teacher, while raising her family of three children, led her on to a public career in education policy. She left the Communist Party after the invasion of Hungary in 1956.

After working as a consultant to a 1969-70 Committee of Enquiry into Education in South Australia headed by Prof. Peter Karmel, she was appointed Deputy Chair of the Interim Committee for the Australian Schools Commission in the early 70s, and a full-time member of the Commission for 7 years from 1974 to 1980. Her strong commitment to public values, her capacity for intellectual rigour and engagement with a range of views and her ability to express significant ideas in a lucid and inspiring way meant that she had a profound influence on Australian education. She was also one of the most profound feminist thinkers of her time.

From 1983 -85 Jean Blackburn chaired the Ministerial Review of Post-compulsory Schooling in Victoria. She was the inaugural Chancellor of the University of Canberra from 1990-91, chaired the Victorian State Board of Education from 1991-92 and was founding chair of the State Suffrage Centenary Committee in South Australia from 1992-93. She was awarded honorary doctorates from three Australian Universities. She died in Adelaide in December 2001.

As well as this record of distinguished service and influence, it is Jean Blackburn’s personal qualities and strength of character that explain her place as one of our most loved and revered leaders in education.