Robert Menzies
Sir Robert Gordon Menzies KT AK CH QC FAA FRS (20 December 1894 – 15 May 1978) was an Australian politician and lawyer who served as the 12th prime minister of Australia from 1939 to 1941 and 1949 to 1966. He held office as the leader of the United Australia Party (UAP) in his first term, and subsequently as the inaugural leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, which he was responsible for establishing and defining in policy and political outreach. He is the longest-serving prime minister in Australian history.
For other people with the same name, see Robert Menzies (disambiguation).
Sir Robert Menzies
Position established
Position abolished
Joseph Lyons
Position established
- Liberal (from 1945)
- United Australia (1931–1945)
- Nationalist (to 1931)
4
- James Menzies (father)
- Kate Sampson (mother)
- Frank (brother)
- Sydney Sampson (uncle)
- Hugh (uncle)
- Douglas (cousin)
- Peter Henderson (son-in-law)
- Catherine Anne Money (niece)
- Lawyer
- Politician
Menzies studied law at the University of Melbourne and became one of Melbourne's leading lawyers. He was Deputy Premier of Victoria from 1932 to 1934, and then transferred to Federal Parliament, subsequently becoming Attorney-General of Australia and Minister for Industry in the government of Joseph Lyons. In April 1939, following Lyons's death, Menzies was elected leader of the United Australia Party (UAP) and sworn in as Prime Minister. He authorised Australia's entry into World War II in September 1939, and spent four months in England to participate in meetings of Churchill's war cabinet. On his return to Australia in August 1941, Menzies found that he had lost the support of his party and consequently resigned as Prime Minister. He subsequently helped to create the new Liberal Party, and was elected its inaugural leader in August 1945.
At the 1949 federal election, Menzies led the Liberal–Country coalition to victory and returned as prime minister. His appeal to the home and family, promoted via reassuring radio talks, matched the national zeitgeist as the economy grew and middle-class values prevailed; the Australian Labor Party's support had also been eroded by Cold War scares. After 1955, his government also received support from the Democratic Labor Party, a breakaway group from the Labor Party. Menzies won seven consecutive elections during his second term, eventually retiring as prime minister in January 1966. Despite the failures of his first administration, his government is remembered for its development of Australia's capital city of Canberra, its expanded post-war immigration scheme, emphasis on higher education, and national security policies, which saw Australia contribute troops to the Korean War, the Malayan Emergency, the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation, and the Vietnam War.
Early life[edit]
Birth and family background[edit]
Robert Gordon Menzies was born on 20 December 1894 at his parents' home in Jeparit, Victoria.[1] He was the fourth of five children born to Kate (née Sampson) and James Menzies; he had two elder brothers, an elder sister Isabel, and a younger brother. Menzies was the first Australian prime minister to have two Australian-born parents: his father was born in Ballarat and his mother in Creswick. His grandparents on both sides had been drawn to Australia by the Victorian gold rush. His maternal grandparents were born in Penzance, Cornwall.[2] His paternal grandfather, also named Robert Menzies, was born in Renfrewshire, Scotland, and arrived in Melbourne in 1854.[3] The following year he married Elizabeth Band, the daughter of a cobbler from Fife.[4] Menzies was proud of his Scottish heritage, and preferred his surname to be pronounced in the traditional Scottish manner (/ˈmɪŋɪs/ MING-iss) rather than as it is spelled (/ˈmɛnziz/ MEN-zeez). This gave rise to his nickname "Ming", which was later expanded to "Ming the Merciless" after the comic strip character.[5] His middle name was given in honour of Charles George Gordon.[6]
The Menzies family had moved to Jeparit, a small Wimmera township, in the year before Robert's birth.[2] At the 1891 census, the settlement had a population of just 55 people.[7] His elder siblings had been born in Ballarat, where his father was a locomotive painter at the Phoenix Foundry. Seeking a new start, he moved the family to Jeparit to take over the general store,[2] which "survived rather than prospered".[7] During Menzies's childhood, three of his close relatives were elected to parliament. His uncle Hugh was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly in 1902, followed by his father in 1911, while another uncle, Sydney Sampson, was elected to the federal Australian House of Representatives in 1906.[8] Each of the three represented rural constituencies, and were defeated after a few terms. Menzies's maternal grandfather John Sampson was active in the trade union movement. He was the inaugural president of the Creswick Miners' Association, which he co-founded with future Australian Labor Party MP William Spence, and was later prominent in the Amalgamated Miners' Association.[2]
Interregnum[edit]
Menzies's Forgotten People[edit]
During his time in the political wilderness Menzies built up a large popular base of support by his frequent appeals, often by radio, to ordinary non-elite working citizens whom he called 'the Forgotten People'—especially those who were not suburban and rich or members of organised labour. From November 1941, he began a series of weekly radio broadcasts reaching audiences across New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. A selection of these talks was edited into a book bearing the title of his most famous address, The Forgotten People, delivered on 22 May 1942. In this landmark address, Menzies appealed to his support base:
Personal life[edit]
On 27 September 1920, Menzies married Pattie Leckie at Kew Presbyterian Church in Melbourne. Pattie Leckie was the eldest daughter of John Leckie, a Deakinite Commonwealth Liberal who was elected the member for the Electoral district of Benambra in the Victorian Legislative Assembly in 1913. Soon after their marriage, the Menzies bought the house in Howard Street, Kew, which would become their family home for 25 years. They had three surviving children: Kenneth (1922–1993), Robert Jr (known by his middle name, Ian; 1923–1974)[89] and a daughter, Margery (known by her middle name, Heather; born 1928).[90] Another child died at birth.
Kenneth was born in Hawthorn on 14 January 1922. He married Marjorie Cook on 16 September 1949,[91] and had six children: Alec, Lindsay, Robert III, Diana, Donald, and Geoffrey. He died in Kooyong on 8 September 1993.[92] Ian and Heather were both born in Kew, on 12 October 1923 and 3 August 1928, respectively. Ian was afflicted with an undisclosed illness for most of his life. He never married, nor had children, and died in 1974 in East Melbourne at the age of 50.[89] Heather married Peter Henderson, a diplomat and public servant (working at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia at the time of their marriage, and serving as the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs from 1979 to 1984), on 1 May 1955. A daughter, Roberta, named after Menzies, was born in 1956.
According to Mungo MacCallum, Menzies as prime minister engaged in an affair with Betty Fairfax, the first wife of Sir Warwick Oswald Fairfax.[93] That claim was subsequently disputed by Gerard Henderson and Menzies's own family.[94][95]
Religious views[edit]
Menzies was the son of a Presbyterian-turned-Methodist lay preacher and imbibed his father's Protestant faith and values. During his studies at the University of Melbourne, Menzies was president of the Students' Christian Union.[102] Proud of his Scottish Presbyterian heritage with a living faith steeped in the Bible, Menzies nonetheless preached religious freedom and non-sectarianism as the norm for Australia. Indeed, his cooperation with Australian Catholics on the contentious state aid issue was recognised when he was invited as guest of honour to the annual Cardinal's Dinner in Sydney in 1964, presided over by Cardinal Norman Gilroy.[103]