McClelland was born in Melbourne on 3 June 1915. He was the son of Florence Ruby (née O'Connor) and Robert William McClelland. His father, of Ulster Scots descent, was a painter, paperhanger and signwriter with the Victorian Railways.[1]
McClelland spent his early years in the Melbourne suburb of Glen Iris. In 1925 his father was transferred to Ballarat, where he attended St Patrick's College, Ballarat. He completed his secondary education on a scholarship at St Kevin's College, Melbourne, where he was a classmate of B. A. Santamaria.[1] McClelland's parents had a mixed marriage and he was raised in his mother's Catholic faith. He considered training for the priesthood, but abandoned Catholicism as a young adult.[2] McClelland won a scholarship to attend the University of Melbourne in 1932, but dropped out in 1934 and joined Victorian Railways as a clerk. He later re-enrolled as a part-time student and graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1936.[1]
In 1940, McClelland began working as a labourer with Australian Iron & Steel. Identifying as a Trotskyist, he joined the Communist-dominated Federated Ironworkers' Association (FIA) and came under the influence of union leader Laurie Short and Marxist scholar Guido Baracchi. He later worked for ARC Engineering Company and was a shop steward, but in 1942 was expelled from the FIA for engaging in disruptive activities and terminated from his employment for "anti-war deviationism". His expulsion from the union was reportedly orchestrated by his rival Ernie Thornton.[1]
In 1943, McClelland joined the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). He served as a leading aircraftman with radar units in Australia and was also stationed in New Guinea from 1945 to 1946. After the war's end he settled in Sydney, briefly running a beachside café in Manly. He subsequently enrolled to study law at the University of Sydney under the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme, graduating Bachelor of Laws in 1950. He was admitted to practise law in New South Wales in 1951 and established the firm of Boyland, McClelland and Company. Within a few years he had a "lucrative practice in industrial compensation law".[1] He also represented Short from 1950 to 1952 in his successful attempts to remove the leadership of the FIA, briefing barrister and future governor-general John Kerr.[2]
Early political involvement
McClelland joined the Glen Iris branch of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in 1941 and joined the Paddington branch after moving to Sydney. By the mid-1950s he had abandoned Trotskyism and was approached to join the anti-communist Democratic Labor Party, ultimately letting his ALP membership lapse.[1]
In the early 1960s, McClelland joined the ALP's Mosman branch. He first stood for parliament at the 1966 election, running unsuccessfully in the safe Liberal seat of Warringah.[1]
In 1980 McClelland was appointed the first chief judge of the Land and Environment Court of NSW, holding that office until his 70th birthday in June 1985.
In 1947, McClelland married Nora Fitzer, a Harbin Russian of Jewish descent. The couple adopted two children together, one of whom predeceased him.[2] They divorced in 1968 and in the same year he remarried to Freda Watson, who had three young children from a previous marriage. They settled in Darling Point where they were friends of author Patrick White. McClelland was widowed in 1976 and in 1978 married writer Gillian Appleton.[1]
^Although he was nicknamed "Diamond Jim" by the Australian media, at McClelland's funeral, Gough Whitlam indicated that McClelland disliked this Americanism.
