Ralph Gibson

Ralph Siward Gibson (19 February 1906 – 16 May 1989) was an Australian communist organiser and writer.

Early life

Gibson was born in Hampstead in London to W.R. Boyce Gibson and Lucy Judge, née Peacock. The elder Gibson was appointed to the chair of philosophy at the University of Melbourne in 1911, and the family moved to Toorak, before relocating to Mont Albert in 1918. The younger Ralph attended Glamorgan Preparatory and Melbourne Church of England Grammar schools before graduating from the University of Melbourne (where he was a resident at Trinity College) in 1927 with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in history and politics.

Career

In 1925 Gibson was one of the founders of the university Labor Club and was active in the Labor Guild of Youth. He returned to England in 1927 and received a Master of Arts from the University of Manchester in 1930. He was an organiser for the British Labour Party at the 1929 general election before returning to Australia in 1931 to work as an extension lecturer for the Workers' Educational Association in 1931. Gibson became disillusioned with the Scullin government and its failure to deal with unemployment, and joined the Communist Party of Australia in January 1932. and was little moved by Khrushchev's revelations about Stalinism in 1956.