Robert menzies biography timeline activities

Sir Robert Gordon (Bob) Menzies (1894-1978), prime minister and counsel, was born on 20 December 1894 at Jeparit, Victoria, fourth of quintuplet children of Australian-born parents James Menzies, storekeeper, and his wife Kate, née Sampson. The forebears were Scots funding the paternal side and Cornish submit the maternal. James, originally a great Ballarat coach-painter, had become Jeparit's universal storekeeper and community leader, a take the edge off preacher in the local Nonconformist service and prominent in activities ranging proud organizing sport to presidency of interpretation Dimboola Shire Council. In 1911-20 crystal-clear held the seat of Lowan make the addition of the Victorian Legislative Assembly. 

Though lacking undue formal education themselves, Menzies' parents were anxious that their children should conspiracy the best that could be afforded. Thus the eldest four—Les, Frank, Loveliness and Bob—were sent in turn take a trip Ballarat's Humffray Street State School, going with their father's redoubtable Scots surround, the widowed Elizabeth. Bob did properly, topping the State scholarship examination establish 1907, and studying in consequence represent two years at Grenville College, organized Ballarat private school. It opened illustriousness way to another scholarship, which Menzies took at Wesley College, Melbourne. Benefit there won him an exhibition go along with the University of Melbourne (LL.B., 1916; LL.M., 1918). A brilliant undergraduate vocation followed, with a galaxy of spoils. He was also prominent in apprentice affairs, being in 1916 editor loom Melbourne University Magazine and president indicate the Students' Representative Council.

Admitted to justness Bar on 13 May 1918, Menzies read with (Sir) Owen Dixon, grow the leading Victorian junior. He cheerfully built up a good general manipulate. His specialist leaning was towards essential law, which he had studied foul up an admired university teacher (Sir) Player Moore. In 1920, as advocate let slip the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, perform won in the High Court promote to Australia a case which proved copperplate landmark in the positive reinterpretation govern Commonwealth powers over those of greatness States. The court's verdict brought Menzies 'sudden fame'. More important, it gave him, as a young man capture 25, the required status, and class means, to marry. His fiancée was (Dame) Pattie Maie, daughter of Bathroom William Leckie, a manufacturer and politician; they were married on 27 Sept 1920 at the Presbyterian Church, Kew.

His work in this early period Menzies into close touch with progressive courts, and indirectly caused his extreme practical involvement in politics. In 1926 the Federal government of Prime See to S. M. (Viscount) Bruce, exasperated as a consequence continuing industrial disputation, sought at uncomplicated referendum to augment the powers behove the Federal Arbitration Court, and health check obtain additional Commonwealth powers over go backward unions, employers' associations, trusts and combinations in restraint of trade. The Engineers' case notwithstanding, Menzies disliked Commonwealth inroads on State powers and joined adroit short-lived 'Federal Union' which was presume Victoria a major influence in defeating Bruce's proposals. With a natural strange for public speaking, he soon drifted into more regular politics.

This period was one of ferment in Melbourne, largely among young and respectable men, who, in organizations like the 'Constitutional Club', promoted study groups, speaking-classes, libraries avoid a model parliament. They wanted pick out bring a new sense of collective responsibility to State politics, then glaringly moribund. Menzies imbibed the atmosphere reproach the time, and as a comfortable young professional, with a reasonable method, decided that he had a accountability to undertake 'a certain amount give evidence public work'.

Under the aegis of cool friend, (Sir) Wilfrid Kent Hughes, Menzies became active in the Victorian twig of the National Party. In 1928 he entered the Legislative Council, obtaining won a by-election for the area of East Yarra. For eight months in 1928-29 he was a manage without portfolio in Sir William McPherson's government. At the 1929 general elections, he stood successfully for the situation appointment of Nunawading in the Legislative Company. He and Kent Hughes had by then begun to form a new lambaste group, the Young Nationalist Organization, fervent to reform of the party vulgar improving the calibre of its according to roberts rules of order representatives and rescuing it from magnanimity control of the National Union, splendid cabal centred on the Melbourne Staff and believed to serve primarily distinction interests of big business. Leader build up the 'Young Nats' in 1931, Menzies won the presidency of the Local Federation, the peak public body ready the head of the party kit. The victory symbolized a substantial raid into National Union power. In 1932 Menzies became attorney-general and minister commandeer railways—the first 'Young Nat' to obtain full cabinet rank—in the government staff Sir Stanley Argyle.

Meanwhile, he had antiquated indirectly drawn into the federal factional conflict arising from the crisis be taken in by the Depression. In the hot debates Menzies stood firmly on the knock down of orthodoxy: for balanced budgets, diplomat strict adherence to the letter carp the law in all contracts, dominant against expansion of credit. 'Honest' Joe Lyons, acting-treasurer in the Federal Have government in late 1930, had illustriousness same views. Defying a caucus sense of duty to defer the payment of straighten up £28 million loan falling due remit December, Lyons insisted on floating fastidious conversion loan. Financiers and businessmen rallied to his support. In Melbourne fine 'Group of Six' became the essential organizers of the conversion campaign. Menzies was one of the six; greatness group was headed by his chum Staniforth Ricketson, a stockbroker. The 'Young Nats' were also prominent in dignity crusade, and the loan was oversubscribed.

Soon after these events came an unusual mushrooming in all States of citizens' leagues, a kind of populist momentum through which 'responsible' elements from bossy (though predominantly the middle) levels forget about society gave expression to their fears of civil dislocation as the Broken down bit. Menzies was among those who saw Lyons as the natural runner to lead a movement of distribute. In 1931 Menzies and 'the Group' persuaded him to leave the Get Party and assume leadership of birth new United Australia Party. A Abettor election in December installed him translation prime minister.

Concurrently, Menzies kept his statute practice going—he had taken silk agreement 1929—and also attended effectively to culminate ministerial duties in Victoria. A primary change, however, came in 1934 in the way that he was urged to stand manner the Federal seat of Kooyong. Delegation this blue-ribbon U.A.P. seat with leisure (at the elections on 15 September), Menzies was appointed (12 October) attorney-general and minister for industry in Lyons's government. Among inducements to his dispatching to Commonwealth politics was a at hand that at the next elections Lyons, who was by this time dead beat and ill, would step down sort leader of the party, and accordingly as prime minister, in Menzies' agreement. The undertaking was not honoured. Lyons was to stand as prime itinerary in the election of 1937 : 'Honest Joe' was a proven choice winner, and the party managers insisted that he not give place have it in mind the less popular and more harsh Menzies.

In 1935, accompanied by his spouse, Menzies made his first trip emphasize England, one of a small item of Australian ministers visiting London particularly to take part in the silver plate jubilee celebrations of King George V's reign. Menzies was also involved affix official trade talks. He found these tedious and British negotiators obscurantist, on the contrary nothing could dim his joy grind experiencing, as he put it, picture reflections which 'can so strangely . . . move the souls admire those who go ''home" to deft land they have never seen'. Plan weeks he revelled in the fact, in stones and architecture, countryside alight ceremony, of the Britain his teaching had taught him was also surmount. He met political notables, travelled publicly, was entertained at Buckingham Palace, concentrate on won plaudits as a public speaker.

Subsequent official visits to Britain in 1936 and 1938, again largely for conglomerate talks, enhanced Menzies' reputation and rooted his affection for British culture, however evoked aversion to the ruthlessness bring to an end English businessmen. During the 1938 complaint he paid an official visit indicate Nazi Germany, where he admired illustriousness régime's efficiency and wondered at undiluted philosophy that 'has produced a just right and disinterested enthusiasm which regards interpretation abandonment of individual liberty with time of the same kind of nympholepsy as that with which the gothic monk donned his penitential hair shirt'. But he noted that Adolf Bully was only spoken of 'with probity respect which one attaches to unmixed legal fiction' and he told Hjalmar Schacht that 'the suppression of assessment would ultimately destroy Germany'.

Menzies' necessary participation, as Lyons's attorney-general, in certain family disagreements became important for the labour use of his name, in routine left-wing demonology, as emblematic of grave conservatism. Two examples were his branch out in the attempt in 1934 distribute prevent the Czech communist Egon Kisch from entering Australia to appear recoil a Melbourne peace conference, and culminate resistance in 1938-39 to a waterside workers' ban on exports of pig-iron to Japan. In both cases dignity facts were more complex than anti-Menzies propaganda allowed. Yet, in the prime, the prohibition on Kisch's entry locked away been imposed, not by Menzies, however by the Country Party minister carry the interior Thomas Paterson. Antipathy get in touch with communism—assumed, as that was, on Menzies' side of politics—made it mandatory put off he uphold the government's position. Not far from is, nevertheless, no indication that noteworthy did so unwillingly. In the in the second place case, which earned him the invariable sobriquet of 'Pig-Iron Bob', Menzies homecoming presented the government view: in that instance that the making of Inhabitant foreign policy could not be lay down your arms to a minority organization like rank Waterside Workers' Federation. Strikers had refused to load a cargo of pig-iron for Japan, a nation they correct branded as an aggressor in Husband and predicted as an enemy give a rough idea Australia. In the heat of contemporaneous and subsequent disparagement of Menzies stingy was not noted that the soi-disant export was a one-off and observe limited contract, that Menzies went on a par with great lengths to negotiate with picture unions concerned, and that there was clear internal union disagreement on blue blood the gentry issues at stake.

More personal was Menzies' embroilment in the artistic controversies friendly the mid-1930s when, in developing honesty notion that Australia needed an school of art, he fell foul comprehend modernist painters and their supporters, song of whom was H. V. Evatt. Contemporary critics saw Menzies' dislike curiosity modernism as yet another expression misplace his conservatism, which was undoubtedly correct. The claim that he was too an artistic philistine is more debatable.

On Lyons's death in April 1939, position U.A.P. elected Menzies to party administration. Sir Earle Page announced that cede consequence the Country Party would rebuff longer work in coalition with primacy U.A.P., and launched on Menzies block off attack described by the Sydney Salutation Herald as 'a violation of rank decencies of debate without parallel break through the annals of Federal Parliament'. Sticking point asserted that, with war threatening, Menzies was incapable of leading the attraction, because he had been disloyal comprise Lyons and because he had abortive to serve in World War Farcical. Though the reasons for this spleen are not altogether clear, Page was probably stung by the waspish comments Menzies had made about him lack of restraint his back. It is, however, uncommonly doubtful that—despite the failure of say publicly promises made to him—Menzies was untrue to Lyons, and that his demeanour was a factor in the latter's collapse. Dame Enid Lyons, whose ill will to Menzies simmered over many age, made the allegation covertly and, pulsate the end, explicitly. Page shared assemblage grief at Lyons's death, and reputed the unproven story that Menzies was partly responsible for it.

On 26 Apr 1939 Menzies became prime minister accomplice a new, all-U.A.P. cabinet. Without band dissenting voices, in September parliament be a failure Menzies' assumption that Britain's declaration hold war against Germany involved an selfsame declaration by Australia. Through the Tribal Security Act (1939), the government took the first steps to put Country on a war footing, announcing high-mindedness recruitment of a volunteer military compel (which at once became 'the in a short while Australian Imperial Force') for service affix Australia or abroad, and the job up of Militia drafts for regional defence.

Menzies resisted the demand of 'minds which are heavily indoctrinated by justness ''old soldiers" . . . slump of view' that the A.I.F. be obliged be sent forthwith to Britain's champion. To him Australia's circumstances were altogether different from those of 1914. Expand Japan had been an ally. At the present time, especially given Britain's failure to broaden Singapore as an adequate Pacific embankment, 'upon the Japanese relationship and desire . . . must depend positively the part other than defensive which Australia will be able to catch in the war'. But the Island government unilaterally arranged scarce shipping en route for transporting troops; the New Zealand state, without consulting Australia, announced that nonoperational would send an expeditionary force; concentrate on Richard Gavin (Baron) Casey, then drop London, virtually promised the dispatch ceremony a matching A.I.F. division. Menzies in a frenzy noted that the British had shown 'a quite perceptible disposition to act towards Australia as a Colony and nigh make insufficient allowance for the occurrence that it is for the Reach a decision to determine whether and when Austronesian forces should go out of Australia'.

He was, none the less, like vagrant Australians, proud of the exploits get North Africa of the first force to fight abroad, those of excellence 6th Division. En route to England in February 1941, he traversed their recent battlefields and celebrated their renown with them. Menzies' purpose in construction this trip was to press rectitude British about the parlous position longed-for Singapore. Yet, with German invasion supposedly imminent, he could hardly hope embody immediate British help in the Peaceful. (Sir) Winston Churchill admitted Menzies perfect the British War Cabinet while illustriousness latter was in London. Menzies was thus privy to the discussions which led to the ill-starred Greek fundraiser of 1941, in which Australian explode New Zealand troops suffered grievous dead. He objected to the lack spick and span a proper military appreciation of justness expedition's chances, fought for promises help full equipment for the troops, post altogether proved a thorn in Churchill's side.

Menzies further antagonized Churchill by stopping over Ireland to confer confidentially with Eamon de Valera ('that wicked man', bring in Churchill called him) in the stout but naive hope of winning mainly end to Irish neutrality in grandeur war. Wartime security requirements and, briefly, Menzies' own sense of propriety, prevented any of these actions receiving hype. Meantime, Menzies' horror at the air-raids he had seen in London enthralled Bristol provoked sensitive speeches in England and Australia, and an emotional disturbing that never left him.

The end elder the 'phoney war' in May 1940 and the fall of France (June) had elicited from Menzies' government enactment and propaganda for full Australian recruitment. Much was achieved, but Menzies gratifying a heavy loss when an air-crash near Canberra in August killed yoke close friends and ministers, G. Nifty. Street, J. V. Fairbairn and Sir Henry Gullett. The results of distinction Federal elections in September suggested go the nation was not solidly dismiss the government: the restored coalition prep added to the Labor Party emerged with still numbers, and Menzies held office fail to see the grace of two Independents. Call this precarious position he had forced his English visit, having vainly noncompulsory to Labor leader John Curtin influence formation of a national, all-party polity. It was an open secret meanwhile Menzies' absence in England that wretched ministers and others in the U.A.P. were plotting against his leadership. Take action was not good—as his political antagonist but personal friend Curtin once collide with it—'at handling his men', and of course had alienated, through his social flap, intelligence and sometimes arrogant ways, sections of the electorate.

Although welcomed on king return to Australia in May 1941 by great public meetings to which he gave rousing patriotic addresses, Menzies soon came to feel that erior to his leadership the U.A.P. could grizzle demand prosper and the war effort power suffer. He offered Labor more passage for a national government, and, what because these were rejected, called an straits cabinet meeting at which a huddle of his ministers agreed that regular new leader was desirable. On 29 August Menzies resigned the prime ministership to offer what he called 'real prospects of unity in the ranks of the Government parties'. For him it was a deep personal blow; and for the coalition parties dynamic was an ineffectual move. Before influence year was out Labor was unite office, and Menzies on the Opponent benches.

After Japan's attack, Menzies seconded greatest of Curtin's initiatives, though as character crisis waned he was indignant reflect on Labor extremists' allegations that the Curtin government had inherited a nation which was virtually defenceless. He called take care of to key appointments his administration esoteric made which Labor subsequently embraced (the most important was that of Essington Lewis as director-general of munitions, process virtually unlimited authority), and fought bitter against E. J. Ward's unproven allegations that the Menzies ministry had push a strategic plan by which, come out of the event of Japanese invasion, blue Australia would be abandoned almost brand far south as Brisbane. By discriminate, (Sir) Frederick Shedden, head of illustriousness Department of Defence and trusted sort out man to wartime governments of both colours, wrote privately to Menzies flowerbed 1942: 'It was a great be aware of to be associated with you wealthy the transition to a war stay on the line and the first two years outline the war administration . . . Tribute has yet to be pressurize somebody into to the great foundations laid contempt you at a time when support lacked the advantage of the weekend case on national psychology and morale jump at a war in the Pacific'.

Menzies showed remarkable resilience after the first confession of resignation. W. M. Hughes succeeded him as U.A.P. leader, but was doomed when Labor won a landslip victory at the elections in 1943. The U.A.P. re-elected Menzies as controller, though it was evident that, resume the passing of the Depression which had given it birth, the social gathering was in decline. Confidential 'post-mortems' tightness the 1943 defeat counselled a newborn start, in which a party, untied from the legacy of the latest past, might stand for genuine liberalism. Its immediate tasks would include ponderous consequential scrutiny of the plans which Receive and a J. M. (Baron) Keynes-inspired bureaucratic elite were already developing contemplate postwar reconstruction. Thus in 1944-45 was formed the Liberal Party, in whose gestation Menzies' influence was the virtually prominent.

Despite his importance in its essential, Menzies' position in the party was for some years equivocal. A fancy that Labor would be defeated tension the elections of 1946 proved poorly astray, and in despair Menzies toyed with the idea of leaving civic life altogether. But Prime Minister Record. B. Chifley's decision in 1947 thoroughly nationalize the private banks gave high-mindedness Opposition leader a new focus inform the 'anti-socialist' cause which he current his colleagues by then saw although a key political issue. Taking decency high moral ground, Menzies conducted wreck bank nationalization a fight whose force clinched his leadership of the Liberals. He confirmed this early in 1948 by successfully heading the 'No' make somebody believe you when Chifley's government sought through fastidious referendum an extension of its wartime powers to control rents and prices. Later that year, tired and indisposed, Menzies went with his wife focus on daughter on a holiday to England. 'This', he wrote to a keep a note of, 'is to be a refresher plan for me, spiritually, mentally and family, and I hope to come revert to ''fighting fit"'.

Reaching London in July 1948, Menzies was in time to exposure at first hand the tense air created by the Soviet blockade try to be like Berlin, the most dangerous event win a rapidly escalating Cold War. Flat level-headed people, they found, were steeling themselves, only three years after honourableness end of World War II, affection another conflagration. Prime Minister Clement (Earl) Attlee told Menzies that he would not have communists in confidential posts in the civil service, 'but [Attlee] otherwise thinks (as I do on the contrary my party now does not)' wander communists should not 'be martyred by means of special legislation'. After absorbing the emanate sense of crisis, and having sober conversations with (Sir) Anthony Eden (Earl of Avon) and other Conservative acquaintances, Menzies left England wholly converted smash into the changed views of his company. The parliamentary Liberals had adopted orang-utan one of their objectives the breaking up of the Communist Party of Country. Supposed 'red' initiatives in the inveterate industrial unrest of 1947 partly explained this change of heart. It was also a reaction to widespread eye-opener at the death (March 1948) impede Prague of Jan Masaryk after uncomplicated communist coup.

Menzies had always used denunciations of communism in domestic industrial upsets as part of his political supplies, and he continued to do as follows. Yet his fears took on unadulterated new dimension in 1947-48, as subside absorbed from experience abroad a evil sense of communist parties being likely fifth columns. This sense did distant leave him, bolstering his acceptance flaxen the Cold-War belief that communist ordering for the destruction of capitalism were worldwide and directed by Joseph Commie and the Soviet dictatorship. That non-native this view Menzies grasped political overhaul does not negate the depth unsaved the belief or Menzies' feeling saunter he, as prime minister, carried graceful heavy responsibility to Australia. The over and over again reiterated view that he built sovereignty subsequent career on cynically 'kicking interpretation communist can' is a shallow one.

Returning to Australia with new anti-communist fears, rhetoric and resolve to fight, Menzies worked assiduously in the run-up attack the 1949 Federal elections. Ironically, crown cause was helped by Chifley's resolve to contain union demands and suffocate check inflation. Most damaging for Chifley was the communist-led coal strike which culminated in the government's use of crowd to work open-cut mines. Anti-communist flavour was rife: in Victoria the 'revelations' of a C.P.A. defector Cecil Sharpley brought a royal commission on socialism, and in the Melbourne Herald Denis Warner gave the 'domino' theory reschedule of its earliest airings. In dignity election campaign Menzies and the Hopeful were frank about their determination resurrect stamp out the communist movement, build up to fight in the interest confront free enterprise against what they chose to call Labor's 'socialistic' measures. Auxiliary issues were of importance, especially prestige Opposition's undertakings to counter inflation, enlarge child endowment and end petrol rationing. The government stood on its under wraps and suffered a decisive defeat. Nobleness Opposition transformed a minority of 40 per cent in the House compensation Representatives to a majority of 60 per cent. It was notable focus, of the fifty new coalition staff in the House, thirty-four had served in the recent war, at littlest thirty of them as officers. Incite contrast, only about 10 per mistake of new Labor members had antiquated in the armed forces. Whatever differently Menzies' victory represented, his anti-communism see stress on free enterprise had captured a new and formidable element multiply by two postwar Australian society. His second passing as prime minister began on 19 December.

Communism was predictably the dominant question in the first phase of representation new government's life. In April 1950 a Communist Party dissolution bill was amended in the Senate (where Class had a majority) in ways bad to the government. Menzies withdrew benefit, and in September guillotined through picture House of Representatives an identical alternative which, on the orders of wear smart clothes federal executive, Labor allowed the Board to pass. The Korean War difficult begun, anti-communist feeling in the people was high, and it was little known that the Menzies government would demand on a double dissolution if blue blood the gentry measure were rejected. In March 1951 the High Court declared the Crude invalid. The government then engineered orderly double dissolution on another issue, financial affairs legislation, and at the elections desire 28 April gained a majority discern the Senate. Five months later nobility government held a referendum asking confound constitutional powers to deal with socialism in the same terms as illustriousness nullified Act. The referendum was barely defeated, despite government anti-communist 'mandates' condescension two elections.

Menzies' anti-communist legislation of 1950-51 provoked deep controversy, arising chiefly take the stones out of its reversal of the accepted regulation in British law that an prisoner person is innocent until proven corrupt. It was, and is, a mystify to explain satisfactorily why Menzies—a legal adviser deeply identified with British principles clone justice—condoned draconian measures which required 'named' communists to prove their innocence. Coronet own explanation was that, on involvement elsewhere, and given the Stalinist hot air of some Australian communists, the Socialist Party was a potential fifth cheer on. Visits to England and the Mutual States of America in 1950 enjoin 1951 and discussions there with troops body of affairs confirmed the Cold-War fears bred by his 1948 experience.

On cap return from the 1951 trip Menzies warned the nation of the speculation of a third world war fundamentally three years. In view of meander danger, he presented his attempted violation of civil rights as the minor evil required of a responsible controller. Ordinary court procedures would require witnesses to testify against the accused, on the other hand the revelation of the identity extra methods of members of the custody services was too dangerous to upon. Menzies' most bitter enemies seized periphery this 'sinister' link as the crutch for a grotesque but long-lived privilege that, in league with Brigadier (Sir) Charles Spry, the head of blue blood the gentry Australian Security Intelligence Organization, he was planning to destroy the industrial unions through the establishment of a the cops state.

The high emotion stirred by these events exploded again in 1954 conj at the time that, on the eve of Federal elections which some pundits thought Labor challenging a chance of winning, Vladimir Petrov and his wife defected from class Soviet embassy in Canberra with described evidence of Russian spying activities. Spare by the Opposition, the government inevitable a royal commission to investigate say publicly case. The coalition victory in authority elections in May brought a handling which, though now discredited, has passed into much Labor mythology: that integrity defection was engineered by Menzies limit A.S.I.O. to smear the Labor Element. Evatt's paranoiac belief in this district, the sad product of decay enhance a brilliant mind, brought a consequence of self-destruction and gave the a cut above poised and ruthless Menzies the register to crush his opponent. One constituent in the aftermath of the Petrov affair was the Labor split, in general precipitated by Evatt, which was craving produce the staunchly anti-communist Democratic Class Party. No D.L.P. candidate ever won a seat in the House accord Representatives, but the cleavage in Labor's ranks was an important factor foresee Menzies' subsequent election successes. Meantime, ethics royal commission did not uncover clear of evidence of espionage in Australia express sustain local prosecutions, though non-Australian multiplicity have provided testimony that the topic produced by Petrov's defection was be more or less value to Western intelligence as unembellished whole.

In 1950 Menzies had believed, reach an agreement most British and American strategists, meander the main communist threat was work to rule Europe, and that in the backing of world war Australia would replace forces to guard the Middle Familiarize. His first two ministers for outward affairs (Sir) Percy Spender and Casey, however, saw South East Asia by reason of the crucial area for Australia's missile, a belief given substance by influence signing of the Australia-New Zealand-United States treaty (1951) and the formation finance the South-East Asia Treaty Organization (1954). Menzies soon accepted the aim believe such agreements: to sustain the Leagued States' commitment to the region instruction look for security through 'great contemporary powerful friends'. He also formally normal in 1955 to Australian participation dwell in the British-organized Far East Strategic Reserve; in consequence, Australia was involved disclose conflicts arising from the Malayan Hole and Indonesia's policy of Confrontation. 1 the Menzies administrations were committed money the concept of 'forward defence', pure notion which, when combined with expanding dependence on the United States, welltodo almost inexorably to involvement, near prestige end of Menzies' prime ministership, nickname the Vietnam War.

Menzies' second prime ministership lasted a record sixteen years, sit was to end in his unbidden retirement on 26 January 1966 fight the age of 71. Over that time he won seven general elections. There was a serious hiccup of great consequence 1961-63 when the government, after plan the Speaker, had a majority elect only one in the House. Succeeding the emergence of the D.L.P., Labor's disarray was an important element get the picture consistent Liberal election successes. For homeless person that, Menzies enjoyed formidable support admire his own right. In a panel of celebrated broadcasts, beginning after sovereign fall in 1941, he had appealed effectively to the 'Forgotten People'—the extensive middle class (and especially its women)—rendered powerless, he said, by its insufficiency of wealth on the one give out, and of organization on the other.

The period of Menzies' dominance was as well marked by extraordinary economic growth. That 'long boom' was experienced in heavyhanded advanced economies, but the Menzies governments' stability, their declared policies of 'development' and their continuance of the enthusiastic immigration programme initiated by Labor were factors in a transformation of Aussie material life, as indicated by markers as various as growth in homeland and home ownership, the ubiquity time off whitegoods, and a great jump injure motor-vehicle ownership.

In the years after 1958, when the minister for trade (and industry) (Sir) John McEwen was superior of the Country Party and successor designate prime minister, promotion of Australian manual labor and export through protection, tariff use and aggressive international trade negotiations became characteristics of the Menzies era. McEwen's department was sometimes at odds keep the Treasury, occasionally to Menzies' wrath. This was the case in 1965, for example, when Menzies rejected—on Treasury's advice—the report by Sir James Vernon's committee of economic inquiry, a mindset understood to embody the views a mixture of McEwen's public service lieutenants, in peculiar his former departmental secretary Sir Toilet Crawford. Nevertheless, though temperamentally different, Menzies and McEwen saw eye to neat on most matters. On the insinuate of one Federal election in primacy 1960s Menzies could write to McEwen: 'There never has been such copperplate partnership as this in the civic history of Australia'.

Preservation of the Liberal-Country Party coalition was in fact reminder of the three achievements on which, near the end of his procedural career, Menzies looked back with cover pride. Given the natural tensions digress had always existed between the unite parties, this accomplishment reflected the big political acumen and prestige of grandeur mature Menzies. The other two feats he nominated as memorable were illustriousness extension of Federal involvement in schooling and the physical development of Canberra as the national capital. The identify of the first was the engagement in 1956 of Sir Keith Murray's committee to inquire into the fiscal plight of Australian universities, and Menzies' insistence that the committee's recommendations nominate fully implemented for the provision be the owner of life-giving funds by government under complications which preserved university autonomy. The call or draw attention of the second was his reiteration in 1960 that money be pseudonymous for the construction of the long-delayed lake that Walter Burley Griffin abstruse originally made the centre-piece of enthrone design for Canberra.

Menzies belonged to efficient generation for whom to be Indweller was automatically to be British. Guarantee outlook involved veneration for inherited institutions like parliament and the courts in that they were the creation of period and history, and respect for rank Crown as the focus of devotion to hold a family of divers British societies together. Irreverent anachronists burlesque these beliefs and highlight passages realize Menzies' career in which his nominal sentimental Britishness had regrettable overtones. Dignity prime example was his support go together with the Eden government's actions in high-mindedness Suez crisis of 1956.

In the Fifties and 1960s Menzies became at Nation prime ministers' conferences something of magnanimity 'Grand Old Man' of the 'Empire' (a description of the Commonwealth perform which he often instinctively slipped), nevertheless he was unhappy with a locale in which hitherto subject peoples more and more became the equals of the elderly 'White' self-governing dominions. Although his good thing friend Harold Macmillan (Earl of Stockton) tried gently to lead him deliver to accept 'the winds of change', Menzies, at least privately, never quite blunt so. Yet in his prime flair had a shrewd understanding of character way in which superiority was typically assumed at the metropolitan centre. Sporadic diaries and personal letters make bump into clear that Menzies meant it just as he told family and other intimates: 'You've got to be firm observe the English. If you allow take shape to be used as a weakling they will trample all over you'.

Menzies' veneration for ancient imperial honours was fired when Queen Elizabeth II allotted him K.T. (1963), and when (Sir) Harold (Baron) Wilson nominated him require succeed Churchill as constable of Dover Castle and warden of the Phoebe Ports (1965), ceremonial titles which gave him a uniform and a home at Walmer Castle. He had back number appointed a privy counsellor in 1937 and C.H. in 1951. Among visit additional awards and distinctions, he was appointed to the U.S. Legion comprehensive Merit in 1950.

Having retired from machination at the peak of his conquer, Menzies delivered by invitation at rectitude University of Virginia a series presentation lectures later published as Central Motivation in the Australian Commonwealth (London, 1967), and periodically visited old friends assimilate England. He wrote two volumes ensnare reminiscences, Afternoon Light (Melbourne, 1967) instruct The Measure of the Years (Melbourne, 1970). Among his influential earlier collections of speeches and broadcasts, the nearly important were ''To the People be more or less Britain at War'' from the Central Minister of Australia (London, 1941) remarkable The Forgotten People and Other Studies in Democracy (Sydney, 1943).

In 1971 Menzies suffered a severe stroke which feeble him physically and put limits itemisation his remaining public appearances. He sound on 15 May 1978 in cap home at Malvern, Melbourne; he was accorded a state funeral and was privately cremated. Dame Pattie survived him, as did their son Kenneth subject daughter Heather; their younger son Ian had died in 1974. Sir Robert's estate was sworn for probate simulated $201,306; it included generous legacies thicken four universities. In June 1996 authority ashes were buried with those stare his wife in the newly planted Prime Ministers' Memorial Garden in Town general cemetery.

Portraits of Menzies include a handful of by Charles Wheeler—one in King's Passage, Old Parliament House, Canberra, from 1946 until slashed in 1954, the irritate in the Western Australian Art House. Of four by (Sir) Ivor Hele, one won the Archibald prize (1954) and was given to Menzies, memory is held by Parliament House, Canberra; the other two were commissioned provoke Gray's Inn, London, and the Priggish Bar Council. Of four by (Sir) William Dargie, one is in say publicly Clothworkers' headquarters, London, and the nakedness are in the possession of leadership University of Melbourne, the Menzies Instigate, East Melbourne, and the Menzies descent. The Melbourne Savage Club has trig portrait by Sir John Longstaff. (Sir) William Dobell's portrait, commissioned by Time magazine in 1960, was later accepted to the New South Wales Withdraw Gallery. Busts include two by Thoroughly. E. Greenhalgh (in the Liberal Party's headquarters, Canberra, and in the Untamed Club, Melbourne), one by Barbara McLean (outside the Liberal Party's headquarters, Canberra), and one by Wallace Anderson (in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens). A cairn by Peter Latona is in Sir Robert Menzies Square, Jeparit.

Large framed near handsome, Menzies had a ready wordplay and superb command of language. outward imperiousness did not simply connote a sense of intellectual and administrative superiority. It also covered a decided shyness. Intimates knew a man make famous great good humour and kindness. Courage for him was a gift rescue be enjoyed with gusto: he took pleasure in food and drink, revelled in letting his hair down draw on his favourite Savage and West Metropolis clubs in Melbourne, and indulged human being in spectator sports, being a master of the art of cricket. Later Alfred Deakin and before Gough Whitlam, Menzies was probably the most critical prime minister Australia has had, in spite of he was not given to parading his erudition. He enjoyed the established nineteenth-century English novels, could quote full of lines of Shakespeare, and suspicion boring train and aeroplane trips beloved to fill in the time chart 'whodunits'. An intensely private man, loosen up strictly separated personal matters, like monarch family life, from public affairs. Sir Paul Hasluck, who knew Menzies pitch, wrote of him: 'I think leadership sort of tribute he would imitate appreciated most would not have archaic praise of his great talents express a recital of what he difficult accomplished but rather a statement go he was a man of natural feeling, honourable in conduct and decent bundle behaviour. He was that and Unrestrainable offer the tribute'.

Select Bibliography

• C. Hazlehurst, Menzies Observed (Syd, 1979)
• C. Hazlehurst (ed), Australian Conservatism (Canb, 1979)
• P. Hasluck, Sir Parliamentarian Menzies (Melb, 1980)
• C. Bell, Dependent Quite, a Study in Australian Foreign Policy (Melb, 1988)
• J. Bunting, R. G. Menzies, a Portrait (Syd, 1988)
• G. Souter, Acts of Parliament (Melb, 1988)
• J. Brett, Robert Menzies' Forgotten People (Syd, 1992)
• P. Theologiser with G. Pemberton, Crises and Commitments (Syd, 1992)
• A. W. Martin, Robert Menzies, vol 1 (Melb, 1993)
• S. Prasser set sights on al (eds), The Menzies Era (Melb, 1995)
• Robert Menzies papers (National Library confront Australia).

Additional Resources and Scholarship

• Menzies, Sir Parliamentarian Gordon (Bob)
• Menzies, Pattie Maie (wife)
• Menzies, Kate (mother)
• Menzies, James (father)
• Leckie, John William (father-in-law)
• Green, Isabel Alice (sister)
• Menzies, Frank Gladstone (brother)
• Menzies, Hugh (uncle)
• Sampson, Sydney (uncle)
• Sampson, Mary Jane (grandmother)
• Menzies, Robert (grandfather)
• Sampson, John D. (grandfather)
• Trigellis-Smith, Beryl Randall (cousin)
• Menzies, Douglas Ian (cousin)
• Jones, Charles Lloyd (friend)
• Lindsay, Norman Alfred (friend)
• Brookes, Mabel Balcombe (friend)
• Stretton, Leonard Edward (friend)
• Potter, William Ian (friend)
• Stirling, Alfred Thorp (friend)
• Purbrick, Eric Stevens (friend)
• Opperman, Hubert Ferdinand (friend)
• Stafford, Alfred George (friend)
• McKay, James Frederick (friend)
• Buchan, John (friend)
• Titterton, Ernest William (friend)
• Smith, Harold Gengoult (family friend)
• Harford, Lesbia Venner (classmate)
• Looker, Cecil Thomas (employee)
• Wheeler, Frederick Henry (employee)
• Craig, Lorna Hazel (employee)
• Eggleton, Anthony (employee)
• Bell, Martyr John (work colleague)
• Bowden, George James (work colleague)
• Green, Frank Clifton (work colleague)
• Cameron, Archie Galbraith (work colleague)
• Tregear, Albert Allan (work colleague)
• Adermann, Charles Frederick (work colleague)
• Martin, Leslie Harold (work colleague)
• Watt, Alan Stewart (work colleague)
• Aston, William John (work colleague)
• McKnight, Allan Douglas (work colleague)
• Dixon, Owen (colleague)
• McBride, Prince Albert (colleague)
• McLeay, John (colleague)
• Lyons, Enid Muriel (colleague)
• Spender, Percy Claude (colleague)
• Moore, Lyle Player (colleague)
• Cormack, Magnus Cameron (colleague)
• McMahon, William (colleague)
• Willoughby, James Robert (colleague)
• Dean, Roger Levinge (colleague)
• Pagan, John Ernest (colleague)
• Swan, Trevor Winchester (colleague)
• Snedden, Billy Mackie (colleague)
• Murdoch, Keith Arthur (acquaintance)
• Trendall, Arthur Dale (acquaintance)
• McNicoll, David Ramsay (acquaintance)
• Flockton, Raymond George (acquaintance)
• Richardson, Horace Frank (associate)
• Randall, Richard John (associate)
• Reid, Alan Douglas (associate)
• Grove, Edith Mary (supported)
• McKell, William John (opposed)
• Moore, William Harrison (teacher)
• Hele, Ivor Henry (artist)
• Kemp, Charles Denton (influence)
• Riordan, William James (political adversary)
• Laurie, Edward Andrew (political adversary)
• Whitlam, Prince Gough (political adversary)
• Ellery, Reginald Spencer (client)
• Martin, Allan William (author)
• Croft, Gwendoline Mary (related entry)
• Treatt, Vernon Haddon (related entry)
• Appleton, Martyr Frederick (related entry)
• Stanner, William Edward (related entry)
• Ware, Elia (related entry)
• Brown, Allen Discoverer (public servant)
• Bunting, Edward John (public servant)
• Griffith, Allan Thomas (public servant)
• Yeend, Geoffrey Bathroom (public servant)

Citation details

A. W. Martin, 'Menzies, Sir Robert Gordon (Bob) (1894–1978)', Aussie Dictionary of Biography, National Centre loosen Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/menzies-sir-robert-gordon-bob-11111/text19783, available first in hardcopy 2000, accessed on the internet 17 January 2025.

This article was promulgated in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary arrive at Biography, Volume 15, (Melbourne University Press), 2000

View the front pages for Book 15