15 Facts About Bert Cremean

Herbert Michael "Bert" Cremean was an Australian politician.

Bert Cremean was a Labor Party member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly for the districts of Dandenong and Clifton Hill.

Bert Cremean was Deputy Premier of Victoria for four days in September 1943.

In May 1900, Cremean was born near Richmond, a Melbourne neighborhood in the city center.

Bert Cremean's parents were Cecelia Hannah O'Connell and carpenter Timothy Carton Cremean.

Bert Cremean was educated at St Ignatius' School in Richmond and St Patrick's College in East Melbourne, and held a broad range of occupations including clerk, timberworker, machinist and tram driver.

Bert Cremean joined Richmond Council in 1926, and was mayor from 1928 to 1929 during a time in which the council was split by factional rivalries.

In 1929, Bert Cremean sought preselection for the Victorian lower house seat of Richmond, but was defeated in controversial circumstances by Ted Cotter.

Bert Cremean then sought and won preselection for the seat of Dandenong, and defeated the incumbent Nationalist member and railways minister Frank Groves at the 1929 state election.

Bert Cremean represented Dandenong for one term, until Groves regained the seat for the United Australia Party at the election in 1932.

In 1934, Bert Cremean was preselected for the scheduled by-election for the seat of Clifton Hill, which was vacated by Maurice Blackburn who had resigned to contest the federal seat of Bourke.

In December 1942, Bert Cremean authored and published a booklet, Red Glows the Dawn: A History of the Australian Communist Party, under the pseudonym Michael Lamb, warning of communist tactics and infiltration of the Labor Party.

In 1943, Bert Cremean was appointed Deputy Premier of Victoria and Chief Secretary in the short-lived First Cain Ministry, which lasted less than four days before having its commission withdrawn after the Governor refused to dissolve the parliament on Premier John Cain's request.

In 1945, Bert Cremean underwent surgery for a long-standing colonic fistula at Mount St Evin's Hospital in Fitzroy, but he contracted peritonitis and died on 24 May.

Bert Cremean's death triggered a by-election for Clifton Hill, at which his brother, Jack Bert Cremean, was elected.