Morris Owen carefully balanced a busy legal career with his numerous social activities. Among the early ones was Jaycees when they staged trade fairs for Goulburn’s business houses, drawing bumper crowds. Photo: John Thistleton.
On a train from Sydney to Melbourne one night, Morris Owen woke in the chilly carriage to see Rocky Hill War Memorial’s revolving searchlight above Goulburn.
Travelling to see a former schoolmate in Melbourne at the time, the 20-year-old, Sydney-born Morris could not have known how he would later shape the city’s social landscape under that sweeping light.
A few years later, in 1972, he relocated to Goulburn and practised law for more than 50 years. He is still in his Montague Street office between 5:30 and 6 am, in time to see warm sunrises spill over the sandstone of St Saviour’s Cathedral across the road.
“It’s like Uluru, the sandstone just changes colour according to the morning,” he said.
He first saw the cathedral when he drove to Goulburn for an interview with a distinguished law firm established in 1902, Johnson and Sendall.
An articled clerk completing his law studies, Morris managed to settle his trepidation while interviewed by the firm’s partners, Dick Peterswald, Ralph Ind and Ken Hoad. He landed the job.
Before work, he savoured early mornings in the kitchen of the historic Goulburn Hotel, talking to the staff over a hearty pub breakfast.
His wife, Margot, whom he had met as a teenager and married in 1971, arrived later when rental accommodation was secured.
“It was a really fortunate move for us, it was a great decision,” he said with a contented smile. “Here I am still working at the same place, 53 years later.”
On weekends he played golf with almost every Goulburn Golf Club member thanks to secretary/manager Keith Sharp rotating his roster to meet them all. Later, his 12-year tenure as president included the club winning the A-grade pennants against a Canberra club (Royal Canberra wouldn’t allow the presentation to be held inside the club).
In the Young Liberals when Murray Sainsbury was elected to Eden-Monaro, Morris was approached about his interest in running for office. “Margot, to her credit, said, ‘Over my dead body.’ And I’m so glad she did,” he said.
Unemployment, truancy, and petty thefts existed among Goulburn’s youth (as they did in most places), which the young lawyer saw while providing legal aid at the courthouse. He and two Department of Community Services workers resolved to do something about it, forming the youth-focused group Warooga.
Securing funding for a house, they provided accommodation for young people who had slipped through the cracks, often high school-aged youths who could no longer stay at home.
The son of a travelling salesman, Bob, and his wife Gwen, Morris Owen, a Kogarah School captain, later joined the public service. He worked in the Supreme Court for the Attorney-General and Justice Department and then for Kevin Morgan at Charles A Morgan and Co in Sydney before coming to Goulburn. Photo: Owen family collection.
Coinciding with this was the government-sponsored Community Youth Support Scheme (CYSS), to help the jobless into employment, which the Warooga committee oversaw as well.
“We got a project officer, Greg Cleary, who later became a teacher at St Pat’s College. Greg was instrumental in getting the project up and running and we got grants to run it,” Morris said.
His committee also established a Community Tenancy Scheme, providing low-cost housing for those in need.
In his soccer-playing days with the Rugby Park Rangers, the team took their love of the game into Goulburn’s primary schools to get pupils playing as well, and eventually fielding teams in local competitions.
When hockey players were in the throes of relocating from Hockey Park on Goulburn’s northern fringe to other fields, he became a trustee of the newly named Cookbundoon Sports Fields.
“I’m not on the committees any longer, I am still watching soccer and only realised the magnitude of the decision by us to take over that park, because you have acres out there,” Morris said.
“It’s given the opportunity for Goulburn to have regional competitions. You have people coming from Wagga, Dubbo, Parkes, Bathurst, Griffith, Leeton, Shoalhaven because we can provide on one park about eight fields on which much soccer can be played.”
On primary and secondary school committees, including when Marian College and St Patrick’s School were closed to form the coeducational Trinity College, his skills and lawyer’s objectivity were keenly sought.
Morris became a partner and one of Johnson and Sendall’s long-serving practitioners. Retiring as a partner six years ago, he is now a consultant with the firm.
Morris Owen with his dance partner in ‘’Dancing with the Starz’’, a fundraiser for Goulburn Base Hospital. The couple won. Photo: Owen family collection.
“The work I ultimately did was conveyancing, probate, trusts, estates, leasing and business, all that sort of commercial stuff,” he said.
“You meet so many people and learn about them. It’s wonderful to be able to assist in the most minute ways in my terms. But for them it is so big, that’s the best part of it.”
