Malcolm Uren was the son of Malcolm Francis Uren, schoolteacher, and his wife Millicent Jane, née Leggoe. The family moved to Perth where Uren attended primary school and Perth Modern School. After starting dental studies and working as a boundary rider, he joined the West Australian as a cadet journalist in 1920. At Wesley Church, Perth, on 25 August 1923 he married Lenora Emily Olive Klenk. He worked for West Australian Newspapers Ltd until he retired in 1965.
In 1941 Uren was appointed editor-in-chief of West Australian Newspapers' associate publications, including the rural weekly Western Mail and the radio-guide Broadcaster, using these outlets to encourage young Western Australian short story writers and poets. During the Second World War Uren was engaged as an aide in intelligence operations, under the guise of a war correspondent in the South-West Pacific. Returning to civilian life, he added a women's magazine, Milady, to his responsibilities.
Uren led several parties of journalists, politicians and businessmen to assess the developmental prospects of the North-West. In 1962 he served as media consultant to the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Perth. Uren published several historical works including Sailormen's Ghosts (Melbourne, 1940), which was based on a reconnoitring journey to the Abrolhos Islands and gave an account of seventeenth-century Dutch shipwrecks. He collaborated with Robert Stephens on Waterless Horizons (Melbourne, 1941), a study of Edward John Eyre. Uren also wrote Land Looking West (London, 1948), a biography of Governor Sir James Stirling; and Glint of Gold (Melbourne, 1948), an account of the 1890s goldrushes, drawing on oral histories from veterans of that period. In 1965 he was appointed O.B.E.
[information from G. C. Bolton, 'Uren, Malcolm John Leggoe (1900 - 1973)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 16, Melbourne University Press, 2002, p. 432]
