Born in
Chiltern to schoolteacher William Richard Bourke and Mary Anne Clancy, he attended Christian Brothers College in
East Melbourne before studying law at
Melbourne University, working as a journalist to finance his study. He received a
Bachelor of Law and a
Master of Arts and was called to the bar in 1925. On 4 April 1931 he married Anastasia Maud Mulcahy. He was elected to the
Victorian Legislative Assembly as the
Labor member for
St Kilda in 1952, and was appointed
Queen's Counsel in 1954. Following his defeat in 1955 he returned to law and was a County Court judge from 1959 to 1967. He died in 1970 at
Fitzroy. ==References==