Mr. Maurice Derek Lachberg was born in 1905 in Middlesex, England. Although registered at birth as Morris, by 1926 he was calling himself Maurice Derek.
A trade unionist and cabinetmaker, he was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. His father, Raphael Lachberg, passed away in 1906, and his mother remarried in 1909. The family migrated to Perth, Western Australia, in 1912.
In 1926, he married Dorothy Jean Rickey in Perth, Western Australia, and they had one child together. In 1940, he married Olive Keiller at the district registrar’s office in Perth, and they had three children.
Maurice and his wife established their own cabinet-making business in Osborne Park, later moving further out of the city. His business thrived after he began creating replicas of antique furniture. Regarded as a master craftsman, he carved the panelling in St George’s Cathedral in Perth, Western Australia.
As a member of the Osborne Park Ratepayers’ Association, Mr Lachberg served on the Perth Road Board from 1958 to 1961. He supported local market gardeners who felt that high rates were pushing them out of the area as it developed.
In 1960, he campaigned for the ALP to establish an independent Western Australian branch of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. In his later years, he was active in the peace movement, becoming a member of the State branch of the Australian Peace Committee and promoting the Indian Ocean zone of peace.
In the 1970s, Mr. Lachberg ventured into property development and was honoured as a life member of the Building Workers’ Industrial Union of Australia. He continued to serve on the ALP State Executive until his passing. Mr Maurice Derek Lachberg passed away on 29 November 1981 in Western Australia at the age of 76.
