Harold Blair 1924 to 1976
Born 13 September at Cherbourg Aboriginal Settlement.
Six months after his birth, he and his teenage mother, Esther Quinn, are transferred to Purga Mission near Ipswich. When Harold is aged 2, Esther is sent away to work as a domestic servant. Harold remains at Purga under the care of the Salvation Army mission staff until he is almost 16. He works on the dairy farm and entertains visitors by singing. In 1942, under the wartime manpower regulations, he is sent to work in the canefields in Childers. He sings on the canefields and in local concerts.
In 1944, Marjorie Lawrence visits Brisbane on a concert tour, Harold is granted an audition and is encouraged to take his singing seriously. In March 1945 he sings on radio in “Australia’s Amateur Hour” and gains a record number of votes. Accepted by the Melbourne (Melba) Conservatorium of Music in Melbourne, he gains his diploma of music in 1949. On 30 July 1949 Blair marries a fellow student Dorothy Gladys Eden. Because she is white, their union provokes racist comment.
Encouraged by Todd Duncan, the Black American baritone, Blair leaves for the USA to study, they can not afford a fare for Dorothy. In New York he works part-time as assistant-choirmaster and also cleans offices to earn an income. On 18 March 1951, The Australian Society of New York organises a benefit concert in the New York Town Hall where he performs. Later that year he appears as a guest artist for the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s jubilee tour of Australia.
Reluctant to be separated again from his young wife, Blair decides to continue part-time study in Melbourne. In 1956 he begins teaching part-time at the Albert Street conservatorium (renamed the Melba Memorial Conservatorium). He spends 1959 in Europe, singing and attending Moral Rearmament conferences. Back in Melbourne, he buys a service station in 1962 and later of a milk bar, and then works briefly as the superintendent of an Aboriginal mission station in South Australia. In 1967 he is appointed music teacher in the Victorian Education Department. Meanwhile, he continues to sing and makes numerous concert appearances.
His interests increasingly centre on Aboriginal advancement. Following a visit by a team of marching girls from the Cherbourg reserve to Melbourne’s 1962 Moomba festival, he begins the Aboriginal Children’s Holiday Project, which provides vacations in Melbourne for three thousand children from Queensland mission stations.
A member (1957-59) of the Aborigines’ Welfare Board in Victoria, Blair becomes involved in the Aborigines Advancement League, the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, and the Commonwealth Aboriginal Arts Board. In January 1976 he is appointed A.O.
He dies on 21 May 1976 in East Melbourne and is cremated.