Clive Reginald BURDEU

BURDEU, CLIVE REG1NALD (b. Ballarat, Vic 1899, d. Brisbane, Qld, June 1972). Public servant, social welfare activist.

In 1924, Clive Burdeu, a senior clerk in the Pensions Department, set up a Department of Social Service as an agency of the Victorian Churches of Christ. It brought together the work of the Victorian Temperance and Social Questions Committee and an extensive welfare program conducted by the Burnley Church. A man of vision and force of character, Burdeu developed a group migration scheme that was accepted by the National YMCA and favourably commented on by the Melbourne Herald.

In 1929 Burdeu was transferred to Sydney, as senior examiner of the Pensions Department. While in Sydney he was involved in the Social Service Department of the NSW Conference of Churches of Christ. He organised odd jobs for unemployed members. Some went from house to house as gold buyers, while others painted churches with paint supplied by local congregations who paid for the work through Sunday evening offerings.

Burdeu later transferred to Brisbane as chief clerk of the Pensions office. While there he inspired the Churches of Christ Social Service Department to launch an experimental training scheme for the unemployed, which ran into union trouble. He was elected president of the Federal Conference of Churches of Christ in 1954.

The Commonwealth Government later appointed Burdeu Director of Social Services, and later Australian Assistant Director of Social Services (Rehabilitation). After retiring from the public service, Burdeu threw himself into the work of the Social Service Committee of the Qld Churches of Christ, as its first Superintendent, developing aged homes in Gregory Tce, Brisbane and Mylo House, Toowoomba, as well as a girls' hostel at Kedron.

Burdeu also promoted the idea of developing a theological college for Churches of Christ in Qld. He was chairman of the first College Establishment Committee. When the college was set up in 1964, he offered his services as property manager, and, with his wife Olive, who had been president of the Queensland Churches of Christ Women's Conference in 1956 and who took on the role of housekeeper, shifted on to the college property at Kenmore.

K Wiltshire, C R Burdeu: a Living legend (Brisbane: 1971)

GRAEME CHAPMAN