Rex Alfred Mortimer (11 February 1926 – 31 December 1979) was an Australian academic and expert on communism.
Mortimer attended Melbourne High School and received a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Melbourne in 1947. He became a member of the Communist Party of Australia at the university and remained active until 1969. He completed a doctorate dissertation on the Communist Party of Indonesia at Monash University in 1971 under the guidance of Herbert Feith. Mortimer went on to become a faculty member of the University of Sydney before dying of cancer at Royal North Shore Hospital on New Year's Eve 1979.[1]
He was married to Mary Eleanor Johnston, and the couple had one son and one daughter.[1]