Sir Ronald Wilson: A Matter of Conscience

WEST AUSTRALIANA ABORIGINAL

xxi, 474 p., [8] p. of plates : ill. 24 cm. #150523R Bibliography: p. 439-458. First Edition. Signed by Author.

In 1990 the Hawke Government appointed Wilson as the President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, where he served until his retirement in 1997. During his term as Human Right Commissioner, Wilson also served as Deputy Chairperson of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation from 1991 to 1994.[5]

Wilson was Chancellor of Murdoch University between 1980 and 1995.[8] The Ronald Wilson Prize in Law” was first awarded by Murdoch University in 1993 to the graduate who best combines distinguished academic performance in law units with qualities of character

Orphaned as a child and brought up by a housekeeper, Sir Ronald left school at fourteen to earn a living as a messenger in the local Geraldton courthouse, before subsequently enjoying a meteoric rise in the legal profession to become a Justice in the highest court in Australia. Best known for Bringing Them Home (his moving and controversial 1997 report on the ‘Stolen Generations’ of Aboriginal children), Sir Ronald was also Crown Prosecutor in a number of high profile, important criminal and civil cases, including the trials of Eric Cooke (the last man hanged in Western Australia), John Button and Darryl Beamish.