Alick Kay

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Alick Dudley Kay (3 October 1884 – 4 February 1961) was an Australian politician and a well-known public speaker in Sydney’s Domain. He was born in Petersham, NSW, and went to local public schools. He worked as a clerk for the NSW Government Railways and joined the Australian Army in 1915.

Kay ran for the federal seat of South Sydney in 1917 as a Nationalist but was unsuccessful. In 1918 he left the party and began giving anti-Communist talks at the Domain, often traveling to Melbourne to speak.

In 1925 he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as an independent for North Shore. In parliament he often voted with the Labor Party, surprising his former supporters.

Because of the electoral rules at the time, Labor would have automatically won his seat if he resigned. Jack Lang offered him a job on the Metropolitan Meat Board in 1926 as a consumers’ representative. The Bavin government removed him from the board in 1927. Lang returned to power in 1930 and reappointed him, but he was dismissed again by the Stevens government.

Kay married Mary Elizabeth Clasby in 1913. She was a 52-year-old widow with five children, one of whom, John Clasby, briefly served as a federal MP. In 1933 Kay went to England. After his wife’s death, he married Dorothy Edith Gamson in Islington in June 1943. He later said he worked for the U.K. Ministry of Information during World War II. He returned to Sydney in 1951 and resumed speaking at the Domain on Sundays. He died in Mosman, NSW, in 1961, survived by his wife.