Roy Rawson

Roy Robert Rawson (11 May 1898 – 14 June 1971) was an Australian politician.

He was born at Woods Point to gold miner Robert Rawson and Ellen Smith. From the age of fourteen he was employed in a Melbourne warehouse, and in 1916 he campaigned against military conscription. From 1916 to 1918 he was a wireless operator for the Royal Australian Navy, and after the war he managed first a tea room in Bourke Street and then, from 1922, a bookshop in Swanston Street. In April 1925 he married schoolteacher Florence Elizabeth Mitchell, with whom he had one son. From 1927 he owned his own bookshop in Exhibition Street, where he also ran the headquarters of the Book Censorship Abolition League (1934–36) and subsequently the Australian Council for Civil Liberties. He moved to Upwey in 1951, where he became vice-president of the local Labor Party branch. In 1952 he was elected to the Victorian Legislative Council for Southern Province. He served until his defeat in 1958. Rawson died in Hawthorn in 1971.