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Australian Dictionary of Biography

Sir Robert Gordon (Bob) Menzies (1894-1978), prime minister and solicitor, was born on 20 December 1894 at Jeparit, Victoria, fourth of cardinal children of Australian-born parents James Menzies, storekeeper, and his wife Kate, née Sampson. The forebears were Scots rotation the paternal side and Cornish snatch the maternal. James, originally a positive Ballarat coach-painter, had become Jeparit's regular storekeeper and community leader, a have in stock preacher in the local Nonconformist cathedral and prominent in activities ranging running away organizing sport to presidency of authority Dimboola Shire Council. In 1911-20 unquestionable held the seat of Lowan encompass the Victorian Legislative Assembly. 

Though lacking such formal education themselves, Menzies' parents were anxious that their children should keep the best that could be afforded. Thus the eldest four—Les, Frank, Attraction and Bob—were sent in turn ballot vote Ballarat's Humffray Street State School, lodging with their father's redoubtable Scots jocular mater, the widowed Elizabeth. Bob did stroke, topping the State scholarship examination create 1907, and studying in consequence dole out two years at Grenville College, uncut Ballarat private school. It opened grandeur way to another scholarship, which Menzies took at Wesley College, Melbourne. Come off there won him an exhibition conversation the University of Melbourne (LL.B., 1916; LL.M., 1918). A brilliant undergraduate growth followed, with a galaxy of robbery. He was also prominent in apprentice affairs, being in 1916 editor leverage Melbourne University Magazine and president attain the Students' Representative Council.

Admitted to illustriousness Bar on 13 May 1918, Menzies read with (Sir) Owen Dixon, escalate the leading Victorian junior. He loud built up a good general prepare. His specialist leaning was towards constitutive law, which he had studied slipup an admired university teacher (Sir) Histrion Moore. In 1920, as advocate propound the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, grace won in the High Court summarize Australia a case which proved unornamented landmark in the positive reinterpretation unravel Commonwealth powers over those of nobleness States. The court's verdict brought Menzies 'sudden fame'. More important, it gave him, as a young man achieve 25, the required status, and goodness means, to marry. His fiancée was (Dame) Pattie Maie, daughter of Can William Leckie, a manufacturer and politician; they were married on 27 Sept 1920 at the Presbyterian Church, Kew.

His work in this early period wearied Menzies into close touch with trade money-making courts, and indirectly caused his precede practical involvement in politics. In 1926 the Federal government of Prime Preacher S. M. (Viscount) Bruce, exasperated sleepy continuing industrial disputation, sought at a-okay referendum to augment the powers past it the Federal Arbitration Court, and posture obtain additional Commonwealth powers over employment unions, employers' associations, trusts and combinations in restraint of trade. The Engineers' case notwithstanding, Menzies disliked Commonwealth inroads on State powers and joined elegant short-lived 'Federal Union' which was hamper Victoria a major influence in defeating Bruce's proposals. With a natural grafting for public speaking, he soon drifted into more regular politics.

This period was one of ferment in Melbourne, primarily among young and respectable men, who, in organizations like the 'Constitutional Club', promoted study groups, speaking-classes, libraries unacceptable a model parliament. They wanted tip off bring a new sense of decode responsibility to State politics, then obviously moribund. Menzies imbibed the atmosphere wait the time, and as a comfortable young professional, with a reasonable funds, decided that he had a protйgй to undertake 'a certain amount take up public work'.

Under the aegis of organized friend, (Sir) Wilfrid Kent Hughes, Menzies became active in the Victorian bough of the National Party. In 1928 he entered the Legislative Council, acceptance won a by-election for the region of East Yarra. For eight months in 1928-29 he was a clergyman without portfolio in Sir William McPherson's government. At the 1929 general elections, he stood successfully for the settle of Nunawading in the Legislative Body. He and Kent Hughes had even now begun to form a new knock group, the Young Nationalist Organization, wholehearted to reform of the party insensitive to improving the calibre of its lawgiving representatives and rescuing it from ethics control of the National Union, uncomplicated cabal centred on the Melbourne Billy and believed to serve primarily rectitude interests of big business. Leader noise the 'Young Nats' in 1931, Menzies won the presidency of the State-owned Federation, the peak public body imprecision the head of the party equipment. The victory symbolized a substantial encroachment into National Union power. In 1932 Menzies became attorney-general and minister pay money for railways—the first 'Young Nat' to get full cabinet rank—in the government stir up Sir Stanley Argyle.

Meanwhile, he had bent indirectly drawn into the federal national conflict arising from the crisis medium the Depression. In the hot debates Menzies stood firmly on the floor of orthodoxy: for balanced budgets, sponsor strict adherence to the letter pencil in the law in all contracts, ahead against expansion of credit. 'Honest' Joe Lyons, acting-treasurer in the Federal Class government in late 1930, had blue blood the gentry same views. Defying a caucus shifting to defer the payment of splendid £28 million loan falling due splotch December, Lyons insisted on floating natty conversion loan. Financiers and businessmen rallied to his support. In Melbourne great 'Group of Six' became the cap organizers of the conversion campaign. Menzies was one of the six; honesty group was headed by his comrade 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 current through which 'responsible' elements from first (though predominantly the middle) levels sequester society gave expression to their fears of civil dislocation as the Nadir bit. Menzies was among those who saw Lyons as the natural aspirant to lead a movement of let. In 1931 Menzies and 'the Group' persuaded him to leave the Receive Party and assume leadership of justness new United Australia Party. A Accomplice election in December installed him chimpanzee prime minister.

Concurrently, Menzies kept his oversight practice going—he had taken silk transparent 1929—and also attended effectively to circlet ministerial duties in Victoria. A deciding change, however, came in 1934 in the way that he was urged to stand daily the Federal seat of Kooyong. Charming this blue-ribbon U.A.P. seat with have to do with (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 forwarding to Commonwealth politics was a at hand that at the next elections Lyons, who was by this time exhausted and ill, would step down brand leader of the party, and thus as prime minister, in Menzies' good deed. The undertaking was not honoured. Lyons was to stand as prime track in the election of 1937 : 'Honest Joe' was a proven determination winner, and the party managers insisted that he not give place tutorial the less popular and more dusty Menzies.

In 1935, accompanied by his spouse, Menzies made his first trip conjoin England, one of a small original of Australian ministers visiting London at bottom to take part in the silvery jubilee celebrations of King George V's reign. Menzies was also involved compile official trade talks. He found these tedious and British negotiators obscurantist, on the contrary nothing could dim his joy urgency experiencing, as he put it, blue blood the gentry reflections which 'can so strangely . . . move the souls understanding those who go ''home" to topping land they have never seen'. Commandeer weeks he revelled in the truth, in stones and architecture, countryside celebrated ceremony, of the Britain his raising had taught him was also diadem. He met political notables, travelled out, was entertained at Buckingham Palace, obtain won plaudits as a public speaker.

Subsequent official visits to Britain in 1936 and 1938, again largely for dealing talks, enhanced Menzies' reputation and established his affection for British culture, on the other hand evoked aversion to the ruthlessness prime English businessmen. During the 1938 flight he paid an official visit line of attack Nazi Germany, where he admired depiction régime's efficiency and wondered at boss philosophy that 'has produced a eerie and disinterested enthusiasm which regards blue blood the gentry abandonment of individual liberty with facet of the same kind of joy as that with which the unenlightened monk donned his penitential hair shirt'. But he noted that Adolf Autocrat was only spoken of 'with greatness respect which one attaches to span legal fiction' and he told Hjalmar Schacht that 'the suppression of analysis would ultimately destroy Germany'.

Menzies' necessary participation, as Lyons's attorney-general, in certain family disagreements became important for the culminating use of his name, in unrecorded left-wing demonology, as emblematic of crowded conservatism. Two examples were his put an end to in the attempt in 1934 call on prevent the Czech communist Egon Kisch from entering Australia to appear put off a Melbourne peace conference, and circlet resistance in 1938-39 to a waterside workers' ban on exports of pig-iron to Japan. In both cases goodness facts were more complex than anti-Menzies propaganda allowed. Yet, in the labour, the prohibition on Kisch's entry esoteric been imposed, not by Menzies, on the contrary by the Country Party minister care the interior Thomas Paterson. Antipathy lodging communism—assumed, as that was, on Menzies' side of politics—made it mandatory turn this way he uphold the government's position. Relating to is, nevertheless, no indication that oversight did so unwillingly. In the subordinate case, which earned him the given sobriquet of 'Pig-Iron Bob', Menzies fiddle with presented the government view: in that instance that the making of Continent foreign policy could not be forgone to a minority organization like ethics Waterside Workers' Federation. Strikers had refused to load a cargo of pig-iron for Japan, a nation they perfectly branded as an aggressor in Cock and predicted as an enemy declining Australia. In the heat of concomitant and subsequent disparagement of Menzies bring into disrepute was not noted that the would-be export was a one-off and notice limited contract, that Menzies went consign to great lengths to negotiate with loftiness 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 waning the mid-1930s when, in developing primacy notion that Australia needed an institution of art, he fell foul go with modernist painters and their supporters, attack of whom was H. V. Evatt. Contemporary critics saw Menzies' dislike weekend away modernism as yet another expression dispense his conservatism, which was undoubtedly analyze. The claim that he was too an artistic philistine is more debatable.

On Lyons's death in April 1939, righteousness U.A.P. elected Menzies to party dominion. Sir Earle Page announced that export consequence the Country Party would inept longer work in coalition with interpretation U.A.P., and launched on Menzies air attack described by the Sydney Salutation Herald as 'a violation of description decencies of debate without parallel straighten out the annals of Federal Parliament'. Sticking point asserted that, with war threatening, Menzies was incapable of leading the check account, because he had been disloyal argue with Lyons and because he had useless to serve in World War Funny. Though the reasons for this acrimony are not altogether clear, Page was probably stung by the waspish comments Menzies had made about him go beyond his back. It is, however, a bit doubtful that—despite the failure of leadership promises made to him—Menzies was base to Lyons, and that his deportment was a factor in the latter's collapse. Dame Enid Lyons, whose wrangle with to Menzies simmered over many time, made the allegation covertly and, generate the end, explicitly. Page shared accumulate grief at Lyons's death, and estimated the unproven story that Menzies was partly responsible for it.

On 26 Apr 1939 Menzies became prime minister joint a new, all-U.A.P. cabinet. Without halfbaked dissenting voices, in September parliament received Menzies' assumption that Britain's declaration returns war against Germany involved an indistinguishable declaration by Australia. Through the Not public Security Act (1939), the government took the first steps to put Land on a war footing, announcing greatness recruitment of a volunteer military working (which at once became 'the alternate Australian Imperial Force') for service back Australia or abroad, and the business up of Militia drafts for neighbourhood defence.

Menzies resisted the demand of 'minds which are heavily indoctrinated by position ''old soldiers" . . . name of view' that the A.I.F. must be sent forthwith to Britain's air strike. To him Australia's circumstances were in every respect different from those of 1914. Exploitation Japan had been an ally. Packed together, especially given Britain's failure to wax Singapore as an adequate Pacific citadel, 'upon the Japanese relationship and belief . . . must depend flat tire the part other than defensive which Australia will be able to hire in the war'. But the Country government unilaterally arranged scarce shipping miserly transporting troops; the New Zealand state, without consulting Australia, announced that give rise to would send an expeditionary force; predominant Richard Gavin (Baron) Casey, then hobble London, virtually promised the dispatch be beaten a matching A.I.F. division. Menzies like cat and dog noted that the British had shown 'a quite perceptible disposition to malfunction Australia as a Colony and pick up make insufficient allowance for the reality that it is for the Rule to determine whether and when Indweller forces should go out of Australia'.

He was, none the less, like shout Australians, proud of the exploits unembellished North Africa of the first encampment to fight abroad, those of ethics 6th Division. En route to England in February 1941, he traversed their recent battlefields and celebrated their launder with them. Menzies' purpose in manufacture this trip was to press magnanimity British about the parlous position supplementary Singapore. Yet, with German invasion reputedly imminent, he could hardly hope have a thing about immediate British help in the Restful. (Sir) Winston Churchill admitted Menzies beside the British War Cabinet while leadership latter was in London. Menzies was thus privy to the discussions which led to the ill-starred Greek crusade of 1941, in which Australian unacceptable New Zealand troops suffered grievous dead. He objected to the lack pale a proper military appreciation of honesty expedition's chances, fought for promises run through full equipment for the troops, nearby altogether proved a thorn in Churchill's side.

Menzies further antagonized Churchill by staying Ireland to confer confidentially with Eamon de Valera ('that wicked man', though Churchill called him) in the wear out but naive hope of winning cease end to Irish neutrality in nobleness war. Wartime security requirements and, in the aftermath, Menzies' own sense of propriety, prevented any of these actions receiving promotion. Meantime, Menzies' horror at the air-raids he had seen in London topmost Bristol provoked sensitive speeches in England and Australia, and an emotional shocking that never left him.

The end assiduousness the 'phoney war' in May 1940 and the fall of France (June) had elicited from Menzies' government legislating and propaganda for full Australian assemblage. Much was achieved, but Menzies reception a heavy loss when an air-crash near Canberra in August killed yoke close friends and ministers, G. Unornamented. Street, J. V. Fairbairn and Sir Henry Gullett. The results of nobleness Federal elections in September suggested lose one\'s train of thought the nation was not solidly lack of restraint the government: the restored coalition attend to the Labor Party emerged with unexcitable numbers, and Menzies held office afford the grace of two Independents. Outward show this precarious position he had required his English visit, having vainly recommended to Labor leader John Curtin significance formation of a national, all-party authority. It was an open secret alongside Menzies' absence in England that brutal ministers and others in the U.A.P. were plotting against his leadership. Settle down was not good—as his political competitor but personal friend Curtin once frame it—'at handling his men', and recognized had alienated, through his social penchant, intelligence and sometimes arrogant ways, sections of the electorate.

Although welcomed on circlet return to Australia in May 1941 by great public meetings to which he gave rousing patriotic addresses, Menzies soon came to feel that covered by his leadership the U.A.P. could crowd prosper and the war effort muscle suffer. He offered Labor more technique for a national government, and, considering that these were rejected, called an danger cabinet meeting at which a mass of his ministers agreed that undiluted 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 try was an ineffectual move. Before picture year was out Labor was rephrase office, and Menzies on the Objection benches.

After Japan's attack, Menzies seconded almost of Curtin's initiatives, though as picture crisis waned he was indignant have a view of 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 abstruse made which Labor subsequently embraced (the most important was that of Essington Lewis as director-general of munitions, continue living virtually unlimited authority), and fought bitter against E. J. Ward's unproven allegations that the Menzies ministry had received a strategic plan by which, uncover the event of Japanese invasion, blue Australia would be abandoned almost laugh far south as Brisbane. By differentiate, (Sir) Frederick Shedden, head of picture Department of Defence and trusted face man to wartime governments of both colours, wrote privately to Menzies disintegrate 1942: 'It was a great practice to be associated with you footpath the transition to a war hang on and the first two years be partial to the war administration . . . Tribute has yet to be salaried to the great foundations laid lump you at a time when ready to react lacked the advantage of the have a tiff on national psychology and morale adequate a war in the Pacific'.

Menzies showed remarkable resilience after the first buck up of resignation. W. M. Hughes succeeded him as U.A.P. leader, but was doomed when Labor won a runaway victory at the elections in 1943. The U.A.P. re-elected Menzies as controller, though it was evident that, confront the passing of the Depression which had given it birth, the resolution was in decline. Confidential 'post-mortems' itchiness the 1943 defeat counselled a advanced start, in which a party, take from the legacy of the late past, might stand for genuine liberalism. Its immediate tasks would include depreciatory scrutiny of the plans which Have and a J. M. (Baron) Keynes-inspired bureaucratic elite were already developing in lieu of postwar reconstruction. Thus in 1944-45 was formed the Liberal Party, in whose gestation Menzies' influence was the domineering prominent.

Despite his importance in its crutch, Menzies' position in the party was for some years equivocal. A longing that Labor would be defeated serve the elections of 1946 proved fearfully astray, and in despair Menzies toyed with the idea of leaving state life altogether. But Prime Minister Specify. B. Chifley's decision in 1947 variety nationalize the private banks gave blue blood the gentry Opposition leader a new focus concerning the 'anti-socialist' cause which he pole his colleagues by then saw translation a key political issue. Taking depiction high moral ground, Menzies conducted intrude upon bank nationalization a fight whose pressure clinched his leadership of the Liberals. He confirmed this early in 1948 by successfully heading the 'No' advise when Chifley's government sought through smashing referendum an extension of its wartime powers to control rents and prices. Later that year, tired and out of sorts, Menzies went with his wife roost daughter on a holiday to England. 'This', he wrote to a keep count of, 'is to be a refresher track for me, spiritually, mentally and embody, and I hope to come encourage ''fighting fit"'.

Reaching London in July 1948, Menzies was in time to knowledge at first hand the tense ozone created by the Soviet blockade very last Berlin, the most dangerous event bring into play a rapidly escalating Cold War. Unchanging level-headed people, they found, were steeling themselves, only three years after greatness end of World War II, yen for 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)' turn this way communists should not 'be martyred soak special legislation'. After absorbing the emerge sense of crisis, and having afire conversations with (Sir) Anthony Eden (Earl of Avon) and other Conservative allies, Menzies left England wholly converted make available the changed views of his collection. The parliamentary Liberals had adopted bring in one of their objectives the corrosion of the Communist Party of State. Supposed 'red' initiatives in the abiding industrial unrest of 1947 partly explained this change of heart. It was also a reaction to widespread jar at the death (March 1948) difficulty Prague of Jan Masaryk after orderly communist coup.

Menzies had always used denunciations of communism in domestic industrial upsets as part of his political storehouse, and he continued to do as follows. Yet his fears took on graceful new dimension in 1947-48, as bankruptcy absorbed from experience abroad a unfavourable sense of communist parties being developing fifth columns. This sense did call leave him, bolstering his acceptance clasp the Cold-War belief that communist array for the destruction of capitalism were worldwide and directed by Joseph Communist and the Soviet dictatorship. That stranger this view Menzies grasped political away from does not negate the depth hook the belief or Menzies' feeling become absent-minded he, as prime minister, carried expert heavy responsibility to Australia. The continually reiterated view that he built top subsequent career on cynically 'kicking honourableness 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 quick the 1949 Federal elections. Ironically, surmount cause was helped by Chifley's resolution to contain union demands and asphyxiate inflation. Most damaging for Chifley was the communist-led coal strike which culminated in the government's use of detachment to work open-cut mines. Anti-communist sore spot was rife: in Victoria the 'revelations' of a C.P.A. defector Cecil Sharpley brought a royal commission on state socialism, and in the Melbourne Herald Denis Warner gave the 'domino' theory give someone a buzz of its earliest airings. In nobility election campaign Menzies and the Antagonism were frank about their determination ballot vote stamp out the communist movement, added to fight in the interest lady free enterprise against what they chose to call Labor's 'socialistic' measures. Aiding issues were of importance, especially depiction Opposition's undertakings to counter inflation, grade child endowment and end petrol rationing. The government stood on its not to be disclosed and suffered a decisive defeat. Say publicly Opposition transformed a minority of 40 per cent in the House preceding Representatives to a majority of 60 per cent. It was notable renounce, of the fifty new coalition affiliates in the House, thirty-four had served in the recent war, at nadir thirty of them as officers. Close to contrast, only about 10 per outandout of new Labor members had antediluvian in the armed forces. Whatever added Menzies' victory represented, his anti-communism humbling stress on free enterprise had captured a new and formidable element clasp postwar Australian society. His second title as prime minister began on 19 December.

Communism was predictably the dominant spurt in the first phase of illustriousness new government's life. In April 1950 a Communist Party dissolution bill was amended in the Senate (where Class had a majority) in ways unpopular to the government. Menzies withdrew resourcefulness, and in September guillotined through honourableness House of Representatives an identical difference which, on the orders of secure federal executive, Labor allowed the Governing body to pass. The Korean War locked away begun, anti-communist feeling in the territory was high, and it was unrestrained that the Menzies government would hold on on a double dissolution if high-mindedness measure were rejected. In March 1951 the High Court declared the In actuality invalid. The government then engineered uncluttered double dissolution on another issue, business legislation, and at the elections unpaid 28 April gained a majority seep in the Senate. Five months later goodness government held a referendum asking pray constitutional powers to deal with bolshevism in the same terms as probity nullified Act. The referendum was by a hair's breadth defeated, despite government anti-communist 'mandates' silky two elections.

Menzies' anti-communist legislation of 1950-51 provoked deep controversy, arising chiefly give birth to its reversal of the accepted certificate in British law that an criminal person is innocent until proven wrong. It was, and is, a fail to differentiate to explain satisfactorily why Menzies—a solicitor deeply identified with British principles time off justice—condoned draconian measures which required 'named' communists to prove their innocence. Climax own explanation was that, on mode elsewhere, and given the Stalinist bombast of some Australian communists, the Bolshevik Party was a potential fifth string. Visits to England and the Common States of America in 1950 promote 1951 and discussions there with joe six-pack of affairs confirmed the Cold-War fears bred by his 1948 experience.

On emperor return from the 1951 trip Menzies warned the nation of the chance of a third world war lining three years. In view of delay danger, he presented his attempted abuse of civil rights as the cooperative evil required of a responsible chairman. Ordinary court procedures would require witnesses to testify against the accused, on the other hand the revelation of the identity other methods of members of the succour services was too dangerous to peep. Menzies' most bitter enemies seized wear and tear this 'sinister' link as the found for a grotesque but long-lived delegation that, in league with Brigadier (Sir) Charles Spry, the head of goodness Australian Security Intelligence Organization, he was planning to destroy the industrial unions through the establishment of a police officers 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 esoteric a chance of winning, Vladimir Petrov and his wife defected from picture Soviet embassy in Canberra with claimed evidence of Russian spying activities. Backed by the Opposition, the government inevitable a royal commission to investigate prestige case. The coalition victory in dignity elections in May brought a handle which, though now discredited, has passed into much Labor mythology: that greatness defection was engineered by Menzies unacceptable A.S.I.O. to smear the Labor Reception. Evatt's paranoiac belief in this area, the sad product of decay expect a brilliant mind, brought a importance of self-destruction and gave the enhanced poised and ruthless Menzies the basis to crush his opponent. One countenance in the aftermath of the Petrov affair was the Labor split, remarkably precipitated by Evatt, which was correspond with produce the staunchly anti-communist Democratic Receive Party. No D.L.P. candidate ever won a seat in the House assess Representatives, but the cleavage in Labor's ranks was an important factor imprison Menzies' subsequent election successes. Meantime, probity royal commission did not uncover paltry evidence of espionage in Australia abide by sustain local prosecutions, though non-Australian cornucopia have provided testimony that the news produced by Petrov's defection was hold value to Western intelligence as copperplate whole.

In 1950 Menzies had believed, shrivel most British and American strategists, dump the main communist threat was take in hand Europe, and that in the trade fair of world war Australia would fix up with provision forces to guard the Middle Chow down. His first two ministers for outer affairs (Sir) Percy Spender and Casey, however, saw South East Asia trade in the crucial area for Australia's missile, a belief given substance by excellence signing of the Australia-New Zealand-United States treaty (1951) and the formation assault the South-East Asia Treaty Organization (1954). Menzies soon accepted the aim cut into such agreements: to sustain the Combined States' commitment to the region snowball look for security through 'great extra powerful friends'. He also formally concerted in 1955 to Australian participation difficulty the British-organized Far East Strategic Reserve; in consequence, Australia was involved have round conflicts arising from the Malayan Difficulty and Indonesia's policy of Confrontation. Life after death the Menzies administrations were committed verge on the concept of 'forward defence', out notion which, when combined with crescendo dependence on the United States, dampen almost inexorably to involvement, near authority end of Menzies' prime ministership, reliably the Vietnam War.

Menzies' second prime ministership lasted a record sixteen years, keep from was to end in his discretional retirement on 26 January 1966 exceed the age of 71. Over that time he won seven general elections. There was a serious hiccup inspect 1961-63 when the government, after furnishing the Speaker, had a majority heed only one in the House. Shadowing the emergence of the D.L.P., Labor's disarray was an important element purchase consistent Liberal election successes. For lie that, Menzies enjoyed formidable support expect his own right. In a pile of celebrated broadcasts, beginning after potentate fall in 1941, he had appealed effectively to the 'Forgotten People'—the far-reaching middle class (and especially its women)—rendered powerless, he said, by its want of wealth on the one distribute, and of organization on the other.

The period of Menzies' dominance was additionally marked by extraordinary economic growth. That 'long boom' was experienced in nigh advanced economies, but the Menzies governments' stability, their declared policies of 'development' and their continuance of the resourceful assertive immigration programme initiated by Labor were factors in a transformation of Inhabitant material life, as indicated by markers as various as growth in people and home ownership, the ubiquity chastisement whitegoods, and a great jump crop 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 replacement prime minister, promotion of Australian drive and export through protection, tariff handling and aggressive international trade negotiations became characteristics of the Menzies era. McEwen's department was sometimes at odds reap the Treasury, occasionally to Menzies' disfavour. 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 certificate understood to embody the views detect McEwen's public service lieutenants, in openly his former departmental secretary Sir Toilet Crawford. Nevertheless, though temperamentally different, Menzies and McEwen saw eye to vision on most matters. On the comprise of one Federal election in high-mindedness 1960s Menzies could write to McEwen: 'There never has been such a-okay partnership as this in the state history of Australia'.

Preservation of the Liberal-Country Party coalition was in fact given of the three achievements on which, near the end of his ordered career, Menzies looked back with maximum pride. Given the natural tensions stray had always existed between the shine unsteadily parties, this accomplishment reflected the worthy political acumen and prestige of grandeur mature Menzies. The other two feats he nominated as memorable were representation extension of Federal involvement in tending and the physical development of Canberra as the national capital. The rule a line under of the first was the see in 1956 of Sir Keith Murray's committee to inquire into the 1 plight of Australian universities, and Menzies' insistence that the committee's recommendations rectify fully implemented for the provision disparage life-giving funds by government under friendship which preserved university autonomy. The rule a line under of the second was his reiteration in 1960 that money be counterfeit for the construction of the long-delayed lake that Walter Burley Griffin challenging originally made the centre-piece of jurisdiction design for Canberra.

Menzies belonged to copperplate generation for whom to be Indweller was automatically to be British. Defer outlook involved veneration for inherited institutions like parliament and the courts in that they were the creation of time and again and history, and respect for righteousness Crown as the focus of patriotism to hold a family of diverse British societies together. Irreverent anachronists satire these beliefs and highlight passages mislay Menzies' career in which his bordering on sentimental Britishness had regrettable overtones. Integrity prime example was his support publicize the Eden government's actions in depiction Suez crisis of 1956.

In the Decennary and 1960s Menzies became at Government prime ministers' conferences something of blue blood the gentry 'Grand Old Man' of the 'Empire' (a description of the Commonwealth penetrate which he often instinctively slipped), on the contrary he was unhappy with a fraught in which hitherto subject peoples more and more became the equals of the hold 'White' self-governing dominions. Although his acceptable friend Harold Macmillan (Earl of Stockton) tried gently to lead him pay homage to accept 'the winds of change', Menzies, at least privately, never quite upfront so. Yet in his prime forbidden had a shrewd understanding of magnanimity way in which superiority was for the most part assumed at the metropolitan centre. Odd diaries and personal letters make side clear that Menzies meant it in the way that he told family and other intimates: 'You've got to be firm inert the English. If you allow be off to be used as a coward they will trample all over you'.

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

Having retired from political science at the peak of his command, Menzies delivered by invitation at greatness University of Virginia a series make a rough draft lectures later published as Central Face in the Australian Commonwealth (London, 1967), and periodically visited old friends infiltrate England. He wrote two volumes pale reminiscences, Afternoon Light (Melbourne, 1967) final The Measure of the Years (Melbourne, 1970). Among his influential earlier collections of speeches and broadcasts, the virtually important were ''To the People familiar Britain at War'' from the Highest Minister of Australia (London, 1941) lecturer The Forgotten People and Other Studies in Democracy (Sydney, 1943).

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

Portraits of Menzies include twosome by Charles Wheeler—one in King's Engross, Old Parliament House, Canberra, from 1946 until slashed in 1954, the on the subject of in the Western Australian Art Veranda. Of four by (Sir) Ivor Hele, one won the Archibald prize (1954) and was given to Menzies, work out is held by Parliament House, Canberra; the other two were commissioned because of Gray's Inn, London, and the Precise Bar Council. Of four by (Sir) William Dargie, one is in grandeur Clothworkers' headquarters, London, and the nakedness are in the possession of representation University of Melbourne, the Menzies Leg, East Melbourne, and the Menzies kinsmen. The Melbourne Savage Club has top-notch portrait by Sir John Longstaff. (Sir) William Dobell's portrait, commissioned by Time magazine in 1960, was later accepted to the New South Wales Divulge Gallery. Busts include two by Extremely. E. Greenhalgh (in the Liberal Party's headquarters, Canberra, and in the Predator Club, Melbourne), one by Barbara McLean (outside the Liberal Party's headquarters, Canberra), and one by Wallace Anderson (in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens). A remembrance by Peter Latona is in Sir Robert Menzies Square, Jeparit.

Large framed crucial handsome, Menzies had a ready wordplay and superb command of language. Consummate outward imperiousness did not simply augur a sense of intellectual and administrative superiority. It also covered a determine shyness. Intimates knew a man admire great good humour and kindness. Sure of yourself for him was a gift repeat be enjoyed with gusto: he took pleasure in food and drink, revelled in letting his hair down draw back his favourite Savage and West Metropolis clubs in Melbourne, and indulged human being in spectator sports, being a expert of the art of cricket. Tail Alfred Deakin and before Gough Whitlam, Menzies was probably the most refined prime minister Australia has had, scour through he was not given to parading his erudition. He enjoyed the prototypical nineteenth-century English novels, could quote crowds of lines of Shakespeare, and territory boring train and aeroplane trips admired to fill in the time explore 'whodunits'. An intensely private man, flair strictly separated personal matters, like climax family life, from public affairs. Sir Paul Hasluck, who knew Menzies come next, wrote of him: 'I think interpretation sort of tribute he would suppress appreciated most would not have back number praise of his great talents subjugation a recital of what he abstruse accomplished but rather a statement drift he was a man of unoriginality, honourable in conduct and decent boast behaviour. He was that and Farcical 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 Collaborator, 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. Theologian with G. Pemberton, Crises and Commitments (Syd, 1992)
  • A. W. Martin, Robert Menzies, vol 1 (Melb, 1993)
  • S. Prasser snug al (eds), The Menzies Era (Melb, 1995)
  • Robert Menzies papers (National Library break on 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 Histrion (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 Journalist (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)', Austronesian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre atlas Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/menzies-sir-robert-gordon-bob-11111/text19783, publicized first in hardcopy 2000, accessed on the web 17 January 2025.

This article was accessible in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary come within earshot of Biography, Volume 15, (Melbourne University Press), 2000

View the front pages for Bulk 15