Trevor Alfred Housley CBE (31 October 1910 – 10 October 1968) was a senior Australian public servant. He was Director-General of the Postmaster-General's Department from 1965 until his death in October 1968.

Trevor Housley
Director-General of the Postmaster-General's Department
In office
9 December 1965 – 10 October 1968
Personal details
Born
Trevor Alfred Housley

(1910-10-31)31 October 1910
Gympie, Queensland
Died10 October 1968(1968-10-10) (aged 57)
Kew, Melbourne, Victoria
Resting placeBoroondara Cemetery
NationalityAustralia Australian
SpouseSusan Maureen Reilly (m. 1935)
OccupationPublic servant

Life and career

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Trevor Housley was born on 31 October 1910 in Gympie, Queensland.[1]

Housley served for four years as chief airways engineer in the Department of Civil Aviation,[2] until 1951 when he joined the Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC) as assistant general manager.[2] In 1956, he was appointed to OTC general manager.[1] In the general manager role, Housley led a delegation to the Commonwealth Telecommunications Conference in 1958 which recommended a worldwide telephone cable system be developed.[1] He returned to London in 1960 to convene a management committee responsible for plans to lay the British Commonwealth trans-Pacific cable between Australia and New Zealand.[3]

Housley was appointed Director-General of Posts and Telegraphs, heading the Postmaster-General's Department, in 1965.[2][4]

In 1967, he penned Communications in Modern Society, in which he argued that if public administrators could shift from paper communication to phone-calls, it would streamline the service and enable "quickly responsive sensitivity to public need".[5]

At Kew, Melbourne on 10 October 1968, while still in office as Director-General of the Postmaster-General's Department, Housley died of an intracranial haemorrhage.[1]

Awards and honours

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1961, Housley was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.[1]

In 2012, a street in the Canberra suburb of Casey was named Housley Street in Trevor Housley's honour.[6]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e Maltby, George F, "Housley, Trevor Alfred (1910–1968)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian National University, archived from the original on 21 November 2014
  2. ^ a b c "Postal chief named". The Canberra Times. 1 October 1965. p. 3.
  3. ^ "New Post For Director Of Telegraphs". The Canberra Times. 3 August 1960. p. 2.
  4. ^ CA 9: Postmaster-General's Department, Central Administration, National Archives of Australia, retrieved 21 November 2014
  5. ^ Housley, Trevor (June 1967). "Communications in Modern Society". Australian Journal of Public Administration. 26 (2): 108–112. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8500.1967.tb00136.x.
  6. ^ Housley Street, ACT Government Environment and Planning Directorate, archived from the original on 21 November 2014
Government offices
Preceded by Director General of the Postmaster-General's Department
1965 – 1968
Succeeded by