Michael Denborough

Michael Antony Denborough AM (11 July 1929 – 8 February 2014) was an Australian academic and medical researcher who founded the Nuclear Disarmament Party.

Denborough was born in Salisbury, Rhodesia to Paul Peter Denborough and Alma Mary Hepburn. He was educated at Prince Edward School in Salisbury and the University of Cape Town before being awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to Exeter College, Oxford, where he was an assistant at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, Radcliffe Infirmary. He married Erica Elizabeth Griffith Brown on 12 December 1959. He was Resident Medical Officer at National Heart Hospital in London in 1958 before travelling to Australia, where he was First Assistant at the University of Melbourne and Royal Melbourne Hospital from 1960 to 1968, Reader in Medicine at the University of Melbourne from 1972 to 1974 and was a Professorial Fellow at the John Curtin School of Medical Research in Canberra from 1974 to 1991, working as Acting Head of the Department of Clinical Science from 1975 to 1981 and Acting Director of the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies in 1982. He edited The Role of Calcium in Drug Action, the research for which centred on malignant hyperthermia which he described in 1962 and tentatively linked with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.^[1] From 1992 to 1994 he was Professor of the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University, retiring in 1995. He later became an Emeritus Professor.^[2]

Denborough founded the Nuclear Disarmament Party (NDP) in 1984 and contested elections on its behalf numerous times. He published Australia and Nuclear War in 1984. NDP Senators Jo Vallentine and Robert Wood were elected in 1984 and 1987 respectively.

In 2003 he conducted a lone vigil for 52 days outside Parliament House, Canberra, in protest at what he considered was the unjust invasion of Iraq.^[3]

He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 1999.^[2] He died on 8 February 2014,^[4] survived by his wife, four children and six grandchildren.^[3]

See also

• List of peace activists
• Anti-nuclear movement in Australia

References

Anti-nuclear movement in Australia
Organisations and groups	The Australia Institute Australian Conservation Foundation Australian Greens Australian Labor Party Campaign Against Nuclear Energy Conservation Council of South Australia Friends of the Earth Australia Greenpeace Australia Pacific Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta Medical Association for Prevention of War Mineral Policy Institute Nuclear Disarmament Party Peace Organisation of Australia The Wilderness Society
People	Dorothy Auchterlonie Green David Bradbury (film maker) Bob Brown Eileen Kampakuta Brown Kevin Buzzacott Helen Caldicott Moss Cass Ian Cohen Michael Denborough Mark Diesendorf Jim Falk Peter Garrett Jim Green (activist) Margaret Holmes Jacqui Katona Sandra Kanck Ian Lowe Scott Ludlam Yvonne Margarula Dee Margetts Jillian Marsh Jean Melzer Kerry Nettle Tilman Ruff Nancy Shelley Jo Vallentine Patrick White Stuart White Eileen Wani Wingfield
Books	Britain, Australia and the Bomb Greenhouse Solutions with Sustainable Energy Maralinga: Australia's Nuclear Waste Cover-up Reaction Time: Climate Change and the Nuclear Option
See also	Australian Uranium Association Clean Energy Future Group List of inquiries into uranium mining in Australia Lists of nuclear disasters and radioactive incidents Nuclear power in Australia Nuclear weapons tests in Australia Olympic Dam, South Australia Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry Renewable energy commercialization Renewable energy in Australia Say Yes demonstrations Uranium mining in Australia Uranium mining in Kakadu National Park