20 – ‘Onward to Victory!’

1   Cited in Cecile Trioli and Laurie Cunningham, ‘From Brunswick to the Dardanelles’, in Penrose (ed.), p. 124.

2   Main, pp. 41–4.

3   According to E.J. Holloway, Curtin’s predecessor as secretary, Curtin ‘did a wonderful job. His flare [sic] for journalism was of untold value.’ Holloway, p. 4.

4   McMullin, p. 106.

5   Hewitt, pp. 206–7.

6   ibid.

7   Holloway, pp. 5–6.

8   McMullin, p. 106.

9   Cecile Trioli and Laurie Cunningham, ‘From Brunswick to the Dardanelles’, in Penrose (ed.), p. 124.

10  Les Barnes, ‘The Irish Presence’, in Penrose (ed.), pp. 255–6.

11  Main, p. 46; McQueen, p. 40.

12  Timber Worker, 14 October 1916.

13  Undated anti-conscription leaflet authorised by W. Pyke, 345 Queen Street Melbourne, MS 3939, Box 6, Folder 2, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

14  Draft biography of John Curtin by Lloyd Ross, pp. 261–2, MS 3939, Box 27, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

15  ibid., p. 261.

16  Holloway, p. 4.

17  Undated leaflet [cOctober 1916], signed by Curtin on behalf of the Australian Trades Union Anti-Conscription Congress (National Executive), MS 3939, Box 6, Folder 2, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

18  Walker, pp. 107, 110.

19  East Charlton Tribune, 25 October 1916.

20  The reference to Maltese concerned several hundred Maltese labourers who arrived in Australia just as the plebiscite was about to be voted upon. Their arrival was a considerable embarrassment to Hughes as it seemed to confirm the arguments of the anti-conscriptionists about white Australia being endangered by conscription. ibid.

21  East Charlton Tribune, 25 October 1916.

22  ibid., 28 October 1916.

23  The voting in the plebiscite is set out below:

	For	Against
NSW	356 805	474 544
Vic	353 930	328 216
Qld	144 200	158 051
SA	87 924	119 236
WA	94 069	40 884
Tas	48 493	38 833
Fed.Terr	2136	1269
Total	1 087 557	1 160 033
Holloway, p. 10.

24  Jauncey, p. 245.

25  ibid., p. 245.

26  Dodd, pp. 225, 251.

27  Draft biography of John Curtin by Lloyd Ross, p. 270, MS 3939, Box 27, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

28  Ross, John Curtin, pp. 52–3; Socialist, 22 December 1916.

29  Ross, John Curtin, p. 53.

30  Diane Langmore suggests that he visited Elsie in November 1916 and returned determined finally to marry her. Langmore, p. 122.

31  Socialist, 22 December 1916; Ross, John Curtin, p. 54.

32  Langmore, p. 122.

33  Draft biography of John Curtin by Lloyd Ross, p. 270, MS 3939, Box 27, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

34  Socialist, 22 December 1916.

35  ibid., 12 January 1917.

36  Draft biography of John Curtin by Lloyd Ross, no date, p. 271, MS 3939, Box 27, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

37  ibid., p. 288.

38  Socialist, 16 February 1917.

39  Socialist, 9 and 16 February 1917; Timber Worker, 15 February 1917.

21 – ‘our day will come again’

1   Letter, Curtin to Mahon, 9 February 1917, MS 937/1/43, Hugh Mahon Papers, NLA.

2   McMullin, pp. 82–83; G.S. Reid and M.R. Oliver, The Premiers of Western Australia, 1890–1982, University of Western Australia Press, Perth, 1982, p. 67; ADB, Vol. 8, pp. 70–2.

3   Article by Senator Don Cameron, c August 1945, MS 3939, Box 32, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

4   ADB, Vol. 10, pp. 209–11; Alan Chester, John Curtin, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1943, pp. 2–5.

5   Westralian Worker, 16 February 1917.

6   John Thompson, John Curtin: Portrait of a Prime Minister, ABC radio tape.

7   Westralian Worker, 23 February 1917.

8   ibid., 9 March 1917.

9   ibid., 16 March 1917.

10  ibid., 23 February, 9, 16, 23 and 30 March 1917.

11  Paul Hasluck, Mucking About: An Autobiography, University of Western Australia Press, Perth, 1994, p. 144.

12  Ross, John Curtin for Labor and for Australia, p. 5.

13  Langmore has Curtin living in West Leederville at this time but the Post Office Directory for 1917 gives the Subiaco address. Langmore, pp. 122–3; Interview by the author with Elsie Macleod (nee Curtin), 22 November 1997; Wise’s Western Australian Post Office Directory, 1917.

14  In 1911, just over 60 per cent of men aged between 25 and 29 had never been married. Peter McDonald, Marriage in Australia: Age at first Marriage and Proportions Marrying, 1860–1971, Department of Demography, Australian National University, Canberra, 1974, pp. 134, 161.

15  There were even claims that he left Elsie on their wedding night to speak at a campaign meeting. But it seems that the meeting was held on the following day. Langmore, p. 123.

16  Westralian Worker, 23 March 1917. See also, issue of 16 March 1917.

17  Westralian Worker, 30 March and 27 April 1917. See also issues of 20 April and 4 May 1917.

18  Wise’s Western Australian Post Office Directory, 1917.

19  Westralian Worker, 27 April 1917.

20  ibid., 4 May 1917.

21  Argus, 28 March 1917, in Robson, pp. 81–2; McMullin, p. 112.

22  Westralian Worker, 11 May 1917.

23  Interview by the author with John Troy, Perth, November 1997.

24  Westralian Worker, 10 August 1917.

25  Chester, p. 17.

26  For the physical details and work practices of Curtin, see Transcript of interview with Frances Shea, Battye Library.

27  Chester, p. 25.

28  See Minutes of Meeting, 30 July and 13 August 1917, Metropolitan District Council ALF, 1916–40, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth.

29  Westralian Worker, 15 June 1917.

30  Minutes of Meeting, 30 May and 12 June 1917, Metropolitan District Council ALF, 1916–40, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth; Westralian Worker, 8 June 1917.

31  Curtin applied to join the AJA on 22 February 1917 and was elected to its membership on 16 March, being issued with badge no. 56. Of course, as a union shop, Curtin would have had no choice about joining the AJA. But he did so willingly and became immersed in the association’s affairs, joining its committee on 5 August 1917 as the representative of the Kalgoorlie sub-district. Membership Register, 1917–1918, Australian Journalists’ Association, Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Perth; Clem Lloyd, Profession: Journalist, A history of the Australian Journalists’ Association, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1985, p. 95.

32  Westralian Worker, 18 May 1917.

33  ibid., 6 July 1917.

34  Love, Labour and the Money Power, pp. 61, 65.

35  Draft biography of John Curtin by Lloyd Ross, p. 293, MS 3939, Box 27, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

36  Langmore, p. 123.

37  Chester, p. 20.

38  Age, 6 September 1917, in Robson, p. 86. See also, Robson, pp. 20–1.

39  Main, pp. 79–83; McMullin, p. 114.

40  Westralian Worker, 23 and 30 November and 7 December 1917.

41  Letter, J. McCarthy to Ross, 5 October 1945, MS 3939, Box 29, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA; See also, Ross, John Curtin, p. 61.

42  Chester, p. 5.

43  Timber Worker, 19 January 1918, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

44  Collier entry in ADB, Vol. 8, p. 70; Ross, John Curtin, pp. 61–2.

45  Robson, p. 98.

46  Langmore, p. 123.

47  Letter (part), Curtin to Elsie Needham, late November 1915, MS 3939, Box 30, Folder (i), Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

22 – ‘those whom death has gripped’

1   Westralian Worker, 25 January 1918.

2   ibid., 6 July 1917.

3   ibid., 31 August 1917.

4   ibid., 23 February 1917 and 15 March 1918.

5   ibid., 18 January 1918.

6   ibid., 1 and 15 March 1918.

7   ibid., 29 March 1918.

8   ibid., 8 March 1918.

9   Minutes of Meeting, Metropolitan District Council ALF, 16 and 30 April, 28 May and 9 July 1918, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth; Westralian Worker, 17 May 1918.

10  See Main, pp. 106–7; Westralian Worker, 31 May 1918.

11  Westralian Worker, 12 April and 3 May 1918.

12  Socialist, 26 April 1918.

13  Dianne Sholl, John Curtin at the Westralian Worker 1917–1928: An Examination of the Development of Curtin’s Political Philosophy as Reflected in his Editorials, BA Hons Thesis, University of Western Australia, 1975, p. 17.

14  Westralian Worker, 10 May 1918.

15  ibid., 31 May and 7 June 1918.

16  Healey, p. 72.

17  McMullin, p. 115.

18  Minutes of Meeting, Metropolitan District Council ALF, 31 July 1918, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth; McMullin, pp. 115, 119; Ross, John Curtin, pp. 64–5.

19  Minutes of Meeting, Metropolitan District Council ALF, 23 July 1918, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth; Walker, p. 124.

20  Westralian Worker, 15 November 1918, in Black (ed.), p. 30.

21  Not 3 March 1919, as Lloyd Ross would have it. Ross, John Curtin, p. 72.

22  Ross, John Curtin, pp. 72–3; Scarlett, pp. 93–6; McMullin, p. 116.

23  Letter, Curtin to J.J. Simons, 10 August 1919 and reprinted by Simons on a leaflet c1920 in which he sought support for his selection as Labor candidate for East Perth, MS 3939, Box 30, Folder 9, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

24  David Black, ‘Party Politics in Turmoil 1911–1924’, in C.T. Stannage (ed.), A New History of Western Australia, University of Western Australia Press, Perth, 1981, p. 399; Walker, pp. 154–5.

25  Healey, p. 74; Gunn would later ‘rat’ on the Labor Party when he suddenly resigned as premier of South Australia to take up a lucrative job offer from the conservative federal Government, only to die later penniless and alone. ADB, Vol. 8, pp. 141–2.

26  Healey, p. 74.

27  Westralian Worker, 22 June and 2 November 1917, cited in Sholl, p. 32.

28  Sholl, pp. 33–4.

29  See Minutes of Meeting, Metropolitan District Council ALF, 28 and 31 August 1919, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth.

30  Westralian Worker, 26 September 1919, in Black (ed.), p. 40.

31  Ross, John Curtin, p. 70.

32  Westralian Worker, 25 July 1919, cited in Sholl, p. 27.

33  Minutes of Meeting, Metropolitan District Council ALF, 2 October 1919, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth.

34  Ross, John Curtin, p. 70.

35  Minutes of Meeting, Metropolitan District Council ALF, 16 and 28 October 1919, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth.

36  Letter, J. McCarthy to Ross, 5 October 1945, Lloyd Ross Papers, MS 3939, Box 29, NLA; David Black, ‘Party Politics in Turmoil 1911–1924’, in Stannage (ed.), A New History of Western Australia, pp. 396–7.

37  McMullin, p. 120.

38  Report and Balance Sheet for Half Year ending May 31, 1920, in Minutes of Meeting, Metropolitan District Council ALF, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth.

39  Lee, p. 35.

40  Langmore, p. 124.

23 – ‘the climax is approaching’

1   Ruth Marchant James, Heritage of Pines: A History of the Town of Cottesloe, Western Australia, (2nd Ed.), Cottesloe Council, Perth, 1992, pp. 24–5; Ron Davidson, High Jinks at the Hot Pool: The Mirror Reflects the Life of a City, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle, 1994, p. 36; Interview with Joan Soutter Martin, 1986, Battye Library, Perth.

2   Labor Call, Melbourne, 26 February 1920.

3   Minutes of Meeting, Metropolitan District Council ALF, 14 March 1920, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth.

4   Membership Register, 1917–1918, Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Perth.

5   Australasian Journalist, 15 September 1920.

6   Sholl, pp. 35–6.

7   Westralian Worker, 20 April 1920, cited in Sholl, p. 27.

8   In particular, the editorials cited by Sholl for 5 March and 20 April 1920 were in all likelihood written by Needham rather than Curtin. Although there is a broad similarity in the writing of the two men, the language in these editorials smacks more of Needham than of Curtin. It was also the time when Curtin was recovering from his post-election breakdown. Sholl, pp. 27–8.

9   Westralian Worker, 8 October 1920, cited in Sholl, p. 26.

10  Westralian Worker, 27 May 1921, cited in Sholl, p. 28.

11  Westralian Worker, 16 September 1921, cited in Sholl, p. 28.

12  Graham Freudenberg, Cause for Power: The Official History of the New South Wales Branch of the Australian Labor Party, Pluto Press, Sydney, 1991, p. 128.

13  Freudenberg, p. 128; Healey, pp. 79–80.

14  Draft biography of John Curtin by Lloyd Ross, no page numbers, MS 3939, Box 27, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA. Interestingly, Ross has this quotation by Curtin in a draft of his biography but in the published version removes Curtin’s reference to ‘international communism’ and the Red Flag, simply noting that he opposed Irish self-government because ‘Labor wanted to have less nations upon the face of the earth, not more’. Ross, John Curtin, p. 75.

15  Bulletin, Sydney, 7 July 1921.

16  Freudenberg, p. 128; Healey, pp. 79–80.

17  Minutes of Meeting, Metropolitan District Council ALF, 2 August and 13 September 1921, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth.

18  ibid., 13 September 1921.

19  Bulletin, 23 September 1921, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

20  McMullin, p. 123.

21  For Curtin’s changes of address, see Wise’s Western Australian Post Office Directory, 1917–1924; Langmore, p. 125; Transcript of interview with Elsie Macleod, p. 3, Battye Library, Perth.

22  Freudenberg, p. 128; Mark Hearn, ‘Means and Ends: The Ideology of Dr Lloyd Ross’, Labour History, November 1992.

23  Dodd, pp. 173, 176; Healey, p. 82.

24  Christmas card, 1921, MS 3939, Box 30, Folder 9, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA; Ross, John Curtin, p. 85.

25  According to the conservative W.A. premier, James Mitchell, man’s ‘noblest work was to increase production’ and rural production was ‘morally and economically superior to any other form’. They were sentiments that appealed to Curtin with his memories of a relatively happy rural childhood interspersed with a not so happy time in industrial Melbourne. David Black, ‘Party Politics in Turmoil 1911–1924’, in Stannage (ed.), p. 403.

26  Letter, Anstey to Curtin, no date but latest Hansard page is November 1921, MS 3939, Box 33, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

27  Lloyd, pp. 94–8, 157.

28  Shann had been educated at the University of Melbourne and the London School of Economics before becoming the foundation professor of economics and history in Perth in 1913 and vice-chancellor from 1921–23. Although a socialist in his youth, he had since acquired a ‘respect for the exigencies of the market’. Graeme Davison, John Hirst and Stuart Macintyre (eds), Oxford Companion to Australian History, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1998.

29  Australasian Journalist, 15 January and 16 February 1920.

30  ibid., 15 September 1920.

31  ibid.

32  ibid., 15 December 1920.

33  ibid., 15 April 1922.

34  Nicholas Hasluck, Paul Hasluck — War Historian, video courtesy of Nicholas Hasluck.

35  Australasian Journalist, 16 August 1920.

36  See Annual Reports and Financial Statements for the Australian Journalists’ Association, 1921–24, Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Perth.

37  McMullin, p. 122.

38  Macintyre, pp. 193–4.

39  Minutes of Meeting, Metropolitan District Council ALF, 6 and 14 February 1922, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth.

40  For details of Curtin’s increasing involvement within the Labor Party machine, see Sholl, p. 36.

24 – ‘mere abuse and scurrilous calumny’

1   Westralian Worker, 2 and 9 June 1922, cited in Sholl, pp. 38–9, 47.

2   Westralian Worker, 23 January 1925, in Black (ed.), In His Own Words, p. 57. The term ‘revolutionary evolution’ harked back some twenty years to the formation of the VSP when Mann had been attacked by some Labor Party officials and conservative newspapers for supporting revolutionary methods of achieving political change rather than evolutionary methods. He had argued then that his intention was to seek revolutionary change – the overthrow of capitalism – through evolutionary means. See Chapter 8.

3   David Black, ‘Party Politics in Turmoil 1911–1924’, in Stannage (ed.), pp. 397, 402–03.

4   The Metropolitan District Council of the ALF sent their condolences to the Curtin family on Needham’s death, paying tribute to his ‘great work . . . in the cause of humanity both by pen and voice’. Minutes of Meeting, Metropolitan District Council ALF, 31 August 1922, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth.

5   Lloyd, pp. 149–50; Australasian Journalist, 15 February 1923.

6   Australasian Journalist, 15 September 1923.

7   Report and Financial Statement for the Year Ended June 30, 1924, Australian Journalists’ Association, Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Perth.

8   Australasian Journalist, 15 July 1922; Report and Financial Statement for the Years Ended June 30, 1923 and 1924, Australian Journalists’ Association, Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Perth; Lloyd, p. 156.

9   Lee, p. 57.

10  Minutes of Meeting, Metropolitan District Council ALF, 1 April 1920, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth.

11  Australasian Journalist, 15 October 1923, p. 175.

12  Australasian Journalist, 15 November and 15 December 1923 and 15 February 1924; Lloyd, pp. 156–9; See also Report and Financial Statement for the Year Ended June 30, 1924, Australian Journalists’ Association, Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Perth.

13  Hasluck, Mucking About, p. 112.

14  Letter, J. McCarthy to Lloyd Ross, 5 October 1945, MS 3939, Box 29, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

15  In his biography of Simons, Victor Courtney has Curtin leaving a phone message along those lines for Simons rather than having a confrontation in the street as Ron Davidson claims. See Victor Courtney, The Life Story of J.J. Simons, Young Australia League, Sydney, 1961, pp. 140–1; Ron Davidson, High Jinks at the Hot Pool, pp. 46–51; for a different and somewhat erroneous account of the dispute, see Ross, John Curtin, pp. 75–7.

16  Transcript of interview with Elsie Macleod, p. 4, Battye Library, Perth.

17  Australasian Journalist, 16 June 1924.

18  West Australian, undated, in Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

19  Report and Financial Statement for the Year Ended June 30, 1924, Australian Journalists’ Association, Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Perth.

20  Chester, p. 35; ‘Sixth International Labor Conference of the League of Nations’, Report by Curtin, 5 September 1924, State Executive correspondence, Box 234, ALP Collection, Battye Library, Perth. I am grateful to Bobby Oliver for bringing this to my attention.

21  West Australian, undated, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

22  Chester, p. 37.

23  Tsuzuki, p. 214; White, p. 203.

24  It is possible that this editorial was written by Needham rather than Curtin as it was during the time of Curtin’s nervous breakdown. However, the sentiments can fairly be said to reflect Curtin’s views at that time. Westralian Worker, 5 March 1920, cited in Sholl, p. 29.

25  See Black (ed.), pp. 54–5.

26  See Frank Anstey, Red Europe, Melbourne, 1919; Maurice Blackburn, Bolshevism: What the Russian Workers are Doing, Melbourne, 1919; Robert Ross, Revolution in Russia and Australia.

27  Cited in Dodd, p. 162.

28  According to a friend who claimed to have known Curtin since he was 16 years old, he and Curtin ‘spent a month in company at London in 1924’. Curtin, he wrote, ‘had a queer make up. He and I and the Soviet Trade Agents had a happy time in London together’. See Letters, Tony McGillick to Lloyd Ross, 9 July 1958, and Thorne to Ross, 29 July 1958, MS 3939, Box 29, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

29  Australian Women’s Weekly, Sydney, 1 April 1944; Transcript of interview with Elsie Macleod, p. 13, Battye Library, Perth.

30  Minutes of Meeting, Metropolitan District Council ALF, 29 August and 9 September 1924, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth.

31  See Sholl, pp. 52–4.

32  Australian Women’s Weekly, Sydney, 1 April 1944; West Australian, 29 August 1924, cited in Black (ed.), p. 48.

33  ibid., p. 54.

34  David Black, ‘Party Politics in Turmoil 1911–1924’, in Stannage (ed.), p. 412.

35  Westralian Worker, 4 April and 3 October 1924, 15 October 1926, in Black (ed.), pp. 59–60.

36  David Black, ‘Party Politics in Turmoil 1911–1924’, in Stannage (ed.), p. 409.

37  ibid., pp. 409–10.

38  Fred Alexander, ‘John Curtin: The Prime Minister’, in Hunt (ed.), p. 228.

39  Ross, John Curtin, p. 82.

40  Letter (copy), Curtin to Anstey, 18 November 1924, MS 3939, Box 28, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

41  Sholl, p. 39.

42  Ross’s version of these events is seriously askew. David Black, ‘Party Politics in Turmoil 1911–1924’, in Stannage (ed.), pp. 411–12; Ross, John Curtin, pp. 81–2; For Curtin’s involvement with the Marxist study group, see Ric Throssell, Wild Weeds and Wind Flowers: The Life and Letters of Katharine Susannah Prichard, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1975, p. 233.

43  Letter (copy), Curtin to Anstey, 10 March 1925, MS 3939, Box 28, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

25 – ‘a party of pals’

1   Ross, John Curtin, pp. 81–2.

2   For the union reaction to Curtin being declared ‘black’ see Australian Worker, 14 January 1925, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML; Minutes of Meeting, Metropolitan District Council ALF, 29 January and 25 February 1925, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth.

3   Westralian Worker, 16 January 1925, in Black (ed.), pp. 56–7.

4   David Black, ‘Party Politics in Turmoil 1911–1924’, in Stannage (ed.), p. 412; Ross, John Curtin, p. 82; for a pro-Ryce view of the dispute, see Interview with Cecilia Shelley, Battye Library, Perth.

5   Letter (copy), Curtin to Anstey, 10 March 1925, MS 3939, Box 28, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

6   Interview with Cecilia Shelley, p. 90, Battye Library, Perth.

7   Letter, Anstey to Curtin, no date, but likely late 1924. It is written on the back of loose Hansard proofs and may be a continuation of a letter of 17 November 1924. MS 3939, Box 33, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

8   Letter (copy), Curtin to Anstey, 10 March 1925, MS 3939, Box 28, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

9   Letter (copy), Curtin to Anstey, 3 April 1925, MS 3939, Box 33, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

10  Sholl, pp. 25, 47.

11  Westralian Worker, 18 January 1924, in Black (ed.), p. 65.

12  Westralian Worker, 18 January 1924, 12 August 1927 and 22 June 1928, in Black (ed.), pp. 65–6.

13  Minutes of Meeting, Metropolitan District Council ALF, 23 April 1925, 11 February 1926, and Half-Yearly Report and Balance Sheet for Period ending 30th November, 1925, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth; David Black, ‘Party Politics in Turmoil 1911–1924’, in Stannage (ed.), p. 411.

14  Letter (copy), Curtin to Anstey, 23 June 1925, MS 3939, Box 28, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

15  Westralian Worker, 24 July and 4 September 1925, in Black (ed.), p. 57.

16  Peter Kennedy, ‘Curtin, Hasluck . . . AJA odd couple’, Scoop, Vol. 10, No. 1, p. 12, Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Perth.

17  Australasian Journalist, 15 January 1925.

18  Lloyd, p. 157; Australasian Journalist, 15 September 1924.

19  Report and Financial Statement for the Year Ended June 30, 1925, Australian Journalists’ Association, by Curtin, Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Perth; Australasian Journalist, 31 March 1920 and 15 April 1925.

20  Australasian Journalist, 15 February 1925; Lloyd, pp. 150–51.

21  Report and Financial Statement for the Year Ended June 30, 1926, Australian Journalists’ Association, Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Perth.

22  Letter (copy), Curtin to Anstey, 3 April 1925, MS 3939, Box 33, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

23  Letter, Anstey to Curtin, undated, although written on the back of Hansard proofs dated 12 Oct 1922, the text suggests that it was written just prior to the 1925 election. MS 3939, Box 33, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

24  Letter (copy), Curtin to Anstey, 31 July 1925, MS 3939, Box 33, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

25  Victor Courtney, PERTH – and all this!: A Story about A City, Sydney, 1962, pp. 274–5.

26  Half-Yearly Report and Balance Sheet for Period ending 30th November, 1925, and Minutes of Meeting, Metropolitan District Council ALF, 28 January 1926, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth; Westralian Worker, 20 November 1925, in Black (ed.), p. 58. Curtin had earlier published articles by Anstey on 5 December 1924 and 2 January 1925 entitled ‘Money Power Bushranging the Nation’ which Curtin reprinted in ‘free pamphlet form’. Letter (copy), Curtin to Anstey, 9 April 1925, MS 3939, Box 28, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

27  Westralian Worker, 4 September and 4 December 1925, in Black (ed.), pp. 57–8.

28  Courtney, PERTH – and all this!, p. 272; Transcript of interview with Frances Shea, p. 8, Battye Library, Perth.

29  Transcript of interview with Frances Shea, pp. 8, 12, Battye Library, Perth; Interview by the author with Frances Shea, 20 November 1997.

30  Transcript of interview with Frances Shea, p. 11, Battye Library, Perth.

31  The boozy culture of the Perth Trades Hall mirrored to some extent that of Melbourne. See Transcript of interview with Robert Hartley, Battye Library, Perth. Draft biography of John Curtin by Lloyd Ross, p. 317, MS 3939, Box 27, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

32  Courtney, PERTH – and all this!, p. 272.

33  Report and Financial Statement for the Year Ended June 30, 1925, by Curtin, Australian Journalists’ Association, Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Perth.

34  ‘Course of Study at University of W.A. for 1926’; Letter, Stanley Royce to Clerk of Senate, 2 June 1926, Australian Journalists’ Association, Correspondence etc., University of Western Australia Archives, Perth.

35  Fred Alexander, Campus at Crawley, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1963, pp. 386, 653; Ross, John Curtin, p. 78.

36  James, p. 86.

37  Transcript of interview with Elsie Macleod, pp. 16–7, Battye Library, Perth.

38  ibid., p. 32.

39  ibid., p. 19.

40  James, p. 116.

41  Transcript of interview with Elsie Macleod, pp. 28–9, 36, 105, Battye Library, Perth.

42  Langmore, p. 124.

43  James, p. 116; Courtney, PERTH – and all this!, p. 272.

44  According to Frances Shea, Elsie was ‘just what he needed’ since she ‘always looked on the bright side’. Interview by the author with Frances Shea, 20 November 1997.

45  Letter, Elsie Macleod to Ross, 29 September 1958, MS 3939, Box 29, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

46  John Thompson, John Curtin: Portrait of a Prime Minister, ABC radio tape.

47  Transcript of interview with Elsie Macleod, pp. 22–3, Battye Library, Perth. Perth historian, Fred Alexander, also claims that Curtin had recourse to the bottle ‘intermittently’ during his time as editor of the Westralian Worker. See Fred Alexander, ‘John Curtin: The Prime Minister’, in Lyall Hunt (ed.), p. 230.

48  South Australian Worker, 2 March 1928, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML; Ross, John Curtin, pp. 85–7; Langmore, p. 126.

49  Transcript of interview with Frances Shea, p. 5, Battye Library, Perth.

50  I am grateful to Bobbie Oliver for this information.

51  Transcript of interview with Frances Shea, pp. 5, 7, Battye Library, Perth; Langmore, p. 126.

52  Transcript of interview with Frances Shea, p. 7, Battye Library, Perth.

53  Transcript of interview with Elsie Macleod, p. 30, Battye Library, Perth.

54  Westralian Worker, cJanuary 1929, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

55  ibid.

56  Westralian Worker, 7 December 1928, in Black (ed.), p. 76.

26 – ‘morose and lonely’

1   Langmore, p. 125; Black (ed.), pp. 77–80.

2   Warren Denning, Caucus Crisis: The Rise and Fall of the Scullin Government, Cumberland Argus, Parramatta, 1937, p. 32.

3   ibid., p. 33.

4   CPD, 14 February 1929, in Black (ed.), pp. 78–80.

5   CPD, 15 August 1929, in Black (ed.), pp. 81–2; Letter, Curtin to Barker, 2 September 1929, State Executive Correspondence, Box 323, ALP Collection, Battye Library, Perth.

6   Denning, p. 44.

7   Transcript of speech by E.G. Whitlam, ‘Prime Ministers on Prime Ministers’, p. 2, delivered at Parliament House, Canberra, 3 December 1997, copy supplied courtesy of Mr Whitlam.

8   McMullin, pp. 151–4; John Robertson, J.H. Scullin: A Political Biography, University of Western Australia Press, Perth, 1974, pp. 178–9.

9   Langmore, p.125.

10  Daily Telegraph Pictorial, 28 November 1929, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

11  CPD, 20 November 1929, in F.K. Crowley (ed.), Modern Australia in Documents, Vol. 1, Wren Publishing, Melbourne, 1973, pp. 461–2.

12  Crowley (ed.), pp. 457–8.

13  John Thompson, John Curtin: Portrait of a Prime Minister, ABC radio tape.

14  McMullin, p. 153.

15  Denning, pp. 54–6; Stannage (ed.), p. 414.

16  Letter, Bruce Miller to Lloyd Ross, 31 August 1948, MS 3939, Box 29, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

17  Lee, pp. 57–8.

18  L.F. Crisp, Ben Chifley, Longman, Melbourne, 1961, Chap. 1.

19  When Lloyd Ross wrote newspaper articles in 1958 which mentioned the friendship between Curtin and Southwell, Curtin’s daughter objected strongly on behalf of her mother, informing Ross that it was ‘unnecessary and irrelevant to the story to mention Miss Southwell in such close association with Curtin, as this could easily give a wrong impression and be misinterpreted’. By the time he came to publish the biography 19 years later, Ross omitted all mention of Belle Southwell. Letter, Elsie Macleod to Ross, 29 September 1958, MS 3939, Box 29, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA; Article by Lloyd Ross, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 13 July 1958.

20  I am grateful to Thelma Mackinnon (nee Southwell) for providing background information about her aunt and the Southwell family.

21  Article by Lloyd Ross, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 13 July 1958; Letter, Elsie Curtin to Harrison, 16 December 1958, MS 6277/1/4, Rev. Hector Harrison Papers, NLA; Transcript of interview with Rev. Hector Harrison, JCPML.

22  Article by Lloyd Ross, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 13 July 1958.

23  Letters, Elsie Curtin to Harrison, 16 December 1958 and 11 December 1960, MS 6277/1/4, Rev. Hector Harrison Papers, NLA.

24  Denning, p. 23.

25  ibid., p. 79.

26  Transcript of interview with Elsie Macleod, Battye Library, Perth, p. 52.

27  Australian Worker, Sydney, 27 August 1930, in Crowley (ed.), p. 477.

28  Denning, pp. 37–8.

29  Freudenberg, pp. 156–7.

30  Love, p. 112; McMullin, pp. 165–7.

31  Denning, p. 65.

32  Menzies’s biographer finds nothing untoward about a secret grouping of business figures aiming to destroy a popularly elected Australian government and which sought British money to finance their efforts. A.W. Martin, Robert Menzies: A Life, Vol. 1, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1993, pp. 85–6.

33  Denning, pp. 86–7; McMullin, p. 169; Article by Lloyd Ross, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 13 July 1958.

34  McMullin, pp. 168–72; Martin, p. 92.

35  Charlton Tribune, 28 February 1931.

36  Her death certificate shows that she had diabetes for sixteen years prior to her death in 1938. Death certificate for Catherine Curtin, No. 8958, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Melbourne.

37  Interview by the author with John Ovenden, 22 December 1998.

38  Interview by the author with Frank Curtin, December 1998.

39  Draft biography of Curtin by Lloyd Ross, no page numbers, MS 3939, Box 27, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

40  McMullin, pp. 170–3.

41  Age, Melbourne, 11 June 1931, in Crowley (ed.), pp. 503–4; McMullin, pp. 173–5.

42  McMullin, p. 175; Article by Lloyd Ross, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 13 July 1958.

43  Smith’s Weekly, 3 July 1931, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

44  Frank Anstey, draft biography by Lloyd Ross, p. 70, MS 3939, Box 11, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

45  ibid., p. 74.

27 – ‘standard bearers in a holy war’

1   McMullin, p. 177.

2   Chester, pp. 48–9.

3   Curtin’s campaign manager at the time, Peter Jenson, thought that Curtin was ‘very hurt’ by his 1931 rejection at the hands of the Fremantle voters. Interview by the author with Peter Jenson, November 1997.

4   McMullin, p. 185.

5   Ross, John Curtin, p. 129; Article by Lloyd Ross, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 13 July 1958.

6   Letter, Curtin to Theodore, 22 December 1931, MS 7222, Box 1, Folder 2, Theodore Papers, NLA.

7   As Curtin wrote to Theodore in September 1932: ‘Those who opposed the Plan go on as though there was nothing left to do but destroy those whose fate as Ministers at the time involved their association with it’. Cited in Dodd, p. 95.

8   Ross, John Curtin, pp. 129–30.

9   Letter, Anstey to Curtin, undated and part missing, but the context suggests it was written after the 1931 election, MS 3939, Box 33, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

10  Article by Lloyd Ross, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 13 July 1958; Letter, Theodore to Curtin, 19 January 1932, MS 3939, Box 28, ‘Anstey–Curtin Folder’, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

11  See Letter, Theodore to Curtin, 14 October 1932, in Ross, John Curtin, pp. 133–5; For details of Theodore’s life, see Ross Fitzgerald, “Red Ted”: The Life of E.G. Theodore, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1994.

12  Langmore, p. 127; Ross, John Curtin for Labor and for Australia, p. 9; Ross, John Curtin, p. 137.

13  Ross, John Curtin for Labor and for Australia, p. 9.

14  Ross, John Curtin, p. 131.

15  Transcript of interview with John Tonkin, JT:1:1/27, Battye Library, Perth.

16  Interview by the author with Elsie Macleod, 22 November 1997.

17  Chester, p. 51; Ross, John Curtin, pp. 136–7.

18  Black (ed.), p. 101.

19  Letter, Curtin to Anstey, 16 December 1924, MS 3939, Box 28, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

20  The claim was made by a South African friend of Elsie Curtin after her death in 1975. Argus, Cape Town, 30 June 1975, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

21  Letter, Curtin to Theodore, 30 September 1932, in Ross, John Curtin, p. 131.

22  Langmore, p. 127.

23  Interview by the author with Elsie Macleod, 22 November 1997.

24  Letter, Curtin to Theodore, 30 September 1932, in Ross, John Curtin, p. 131.

25  Program for Eighth Pleasant Sunday Afternoon by North Perth Citizens’ Relief Committee, 4 September 1932, MS 3939, Box 30, Folder 9, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA; Black (ed.), pp. 106–7.

26  David Black, ‘Party Politics in Turmoil 1911–1924’, in Stannage (ed.), p. 417; Daily News, 12 October 1932, in Black (ed.), p. 111.

27  Transcript of interview with John Tonkin, JT:1:1/27, Battye Library, Perth.

28  Letter, Curtin to Theodore, 30 September 1932, in Ross, John Curtin, pp. 131–3.

29  McMullin, p. 194; Typescript biography of John Curtin by Lloyd Ross, no page nos, MS 3939, Box 27, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

30  Transcript of interview with John Tonkin, JT:1:1/27, Battye Library, Perth.

31  Letter (copy), Curtin to Tom Kenafick, 13 April 1933, MS 3939, Box 29, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

32  Ross, John Curtin, p. 137.

33  Collier eventually solved the problem by sending a delegation to London seeking secession in the confident expectation that it would be refused as being unconstitutional. Which it was. David Black, ‘Party Politics in Turmoil 1911–1924’, in Stannage (ed.), pp. 420–1, 427.

34  Minutes of Meeting, Metropolitan District Council ALF, 27 August 1925 and 16 December 1926, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth.

35  See Letters, Curtin to Anstey, 4 and 16 December 1924, 20 February 1925, MS 3939, Boxes 28 and 33, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

36  Ross, John Curtin for Labor and for Australia, p. 10.

37  Ross, John Curtin, p. 138.

38  Fred Alexander, ‘John Curtin: The Prime Minister’, in Hunt (ed.), p. 230.

39  Graeme Davison et al. (eds), Oxford Companion to Australian History, p. 194; Paul Hasluck, Mucking About, p. 311; David Black, ‘Party Politics in Turmoil 1911–1924’, in Stannage (ed.), pp. 422, 429.

40  John Thompson, John Curtin: Portrait of a Prime Minister, ABC radio tape.

41  Ross, John Curtin, p. 136.

42  See for instance, McMullin, p. 185; Serle, ‘John Curtin’, ADB, Vol. 13, p. 552.

43  Ross, John Curtin for Labor and for Australia, p. 10.

44  Langmore, p. 128.

45  Letter (copy), Curtin to Anstey, 8 March 1934, MS 3939, Box 33, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

46  Chester, p. 51.

47  Letter (copy), Curtin to Anstey, 8 March 1934, MS 3939, Box 33, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

48  See various cuttings, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

49  Letter (copy), Curtin to Anstey, 8 March 1934, MS 3939, Box 33, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

50  ibid.

51  Ross, John Curtin, p. 139.

52  Letter (copy), Curtin to Anstey, 8 March 1934, MS 3939, Box 33, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

53  Daily News, 24 October 1933, in Black (ed.), p. 112.

54  Letter (copy), Curtin to Anstey, 8 March 1934, MS 3939, Box 33, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

55  ibid.; White, p. 213.

56  Urgent telegram, Anstey (from Sydney) to Curtin, 23 March 1934, MS 3939, Box 33, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

57  Letter, Anstey to Curtin, 24 March 1934, MS 3939, Box 33, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

58  Ross, John Curtin, p. 142.

59  Ross, John Curtin, p. 142; Black (ed.), p. 121; David Black, ‘Party Politics in Turmoil 1911–1924’, in Stannage (ed.), p. 429.

60  Serle, ‘John Curtin’, ADB, Vol. 13, p. 552.

28 – ‘my plurry oath what a surprise’

1   Crowley (ed.), Vol. 1, p. 573.

2   Letter, Murdoch to Curtin, 25 September 1934, MS 3939, Box 30, Folder 9, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

3   As Kim Beazley Snr. has observed: ‘Curtin seemed incapable of personalities of any kind, and that was certainly a factor in his ability to unify the Party’. Kim E. Beazley, John Curtin: An Atypical Labor Leader, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1972, p. 8.

4   For Australia’s justifiably optimistic reaction to that conference, see a speech by Defence Minister Senator George Pearce, CPD, 27 July 1922, in Neville Meaney (ed.), Australia and the World: A Documentary History from the 1870s to the 1970s, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1985, pp. 326–9.

5   Although Scullin’s Government has sometimes been pilloried for initiating cutbacks in defence spending, the previous Bruce Government had begun substantial cutbacks several months before Scullin was elected. See Meaney (ed.), pp. 368–9.

6   CPD, 1 November 1934, in Black (ed.), pp. 123–4.

7   CPD, 8 April 1935, in Black (ed.), pp. 136–7.

8   W.M. Hughes, Australia and War Today: the Price of Peace, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1935, in Meaney (ed.), pp. 397–9.

9   Extract in Meaney (ed.), pp. 399–402.

10  Ross, John Curtin, p. 147.

11  Alexander, ‘John Curtin’, in Hunt (ed.), p. 231.

12  Ross, John Curtin, pp. 147–8; John Thompson, John Curtin: Portrait of a Prime Minister, ABC radio tape; McMullin, p. 185.

13  Ross, John Curtin, p. 148; for a different version of these events, see Dodd, pp. 119–20.

14  Sydney Morning Herald, 5 October 1935, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

15  Frank Anstey, draft biography by Lloyd Ross, p. 77, MS 3939, Box 11, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

16  Ross, John Curtin, p. 152.

17  Frank Anstey, draft biography by Lloyd Ross, p. 78, MS 3939, Box 11, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

18  Ross, John Curtin, p. 149; Letter, Curtin to Trainer, 24 October 1935, State Executive Correspondence, Box 429, ALP Collection, Battye Library, Perth. I am grateful to Bobbie Oliver for bringing this document to my attention.

19  See Ross, John Curtin, p. 151; Letter, Curtin to Boote, 22 December 1935, cited in McMullin, p. 188; Ross, John Curtin for Labor and for Australia; for further evidence of Curtin’s jaded view of the labour movement and his political life around this time, see Letter, Curtin to Lloyd Ross, 30 July 1935, MS 3939, Box 30, Folder 9, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

20  Ross, John Curtin, p. 151.

21  Letter (copy), Curtin to Anstey, 8 March 1934, MS 3939, Box 33, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

22  Letter, Curtin to Boote, 22 December 1935, cited in McMullin, p. 188.

23  Westralian Worker, no date, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

24  Chester, pp. 55–7.

25  Dodd, pp. 213–14.

26  CPD, 9 October 1935, in Black (ed.), pp. 137–8.

27  McMullin, pp. 197–8.

28  Ross, John Curtin, p. 44; Black (ed.), p. 13.

29  Black (ed.), p. 13.

30  West Australian, 14 December 1935, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

31  Langmore, pp. 128–9.

32  Interview by the author with Peter Jenson, November 1997.

33  As Perth woman, Jean Kerr Vincent, observed of these interwar years, ‘women knew, accepted the fact that they would get married and not be able to work and have a home you see. That was the woman’s role, [it] was defined for her.’ Oral History Interview with Jean Kerr Vincent, 2 June 1982, Transcript OH714, Battye Library, Perth; for details of their second honeymoon, see Langmore, pp. 128–9.

34  Interview by the author with Elsie Macleod, 22 November 1997.

35  Draft biography of John Curtin by Lloyd Ross, no page numbers, Chap. 4, MS 3939, Box 27, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

36  Lloyd Ross wrongly ascribes these undated letters to the years 1929 when young Jack was just 8 years old. The text suggests they date from some time after Curtin became leader of the party. Ross, John Curtin, p. 97.

37  Letter, J.A.J. Hunter to Ross, 6 June 1958, MS 3939, Box 29, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

38  Chester, p. 54.

39  Ross, John Curtin, pp. 154–5; McMullin, p. 188; Healey, pp. 106–7.

40  I am grateful to Robin Glenie, son of Beryl Bruce, for providing access to the signed copy of Mann’s memoirs in which is pasted a handbill advertising the meeting.

41  John McCarthy, Australia and Imperial Defence, 1918–39, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1976, pp. 8–9, 46.

42  Ross, John Curtin, pp. 166–8; D.M. Horner, High Command: Australia and Allied Strategy, 1939–1945, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1982, pp. 8, 11–12.

43  Note by Ross, undated, MS 3939, Box 29, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

44  Chester claims that Curtin was ‘frequently closeted with a Government senator who was an expert on the subject [defence]’. The unnamed senator may have been either Brand, a former major-general, or even Pearce himself. Chester, p. 67; Horner, pp. 12, 465.

45  Letter, Pearce to Curtin, 10 July 1936, MS 3939, Box 30, Folder (i), Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA; Peter Heydon, Quiet Decision: A Study of George Foster Pearce, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1965, p. 11.

46  McMullin, p. 198; John Robertson, ‘The distant war: Australia and imperial defence, 1919–41’, in M. McKernan and M. Browne, (eds), Australia: Two Centuries of War and Peace, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1988, p. 225; Ross, John Curtin, pp. 168–9; CPD, 5 November 1936, in Black (ed.), pp. 141–4.

47  Horner, pp. 12, 465.

48  Chester, p. 66; Martin, pp. 207–8.

49  Ian Hamill, The Strategic Illusion: The Singapore Strategy and the Defence of Australia and New Zealand, Singapore University Press, Singapore, 1980, pp. 276–86.

50  Newspaper cutting, c1937, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

51  Chester, pp. 64–5.

52  Newspaper cutting, c1937, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

53  CPD, 1 December 1937, in Black (ed.), pp. 145–6.

54  Crowley (ed.), pp. 573, 575.

55  Hamill, p. 286.

56  John Thompson, John Curtin: Portrait of a Prime Minister, ABC radio tape.

57  Newspaper cuttings, cOctober 1937, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

58  Scott, p. 18; Newspaper cutting, undated, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

59  Westralian Worker, 9 March 1917.

29 – ‘our first duty is to Australia’

1   Martin, pp. 204, 208.

2   Macintyre, p. 302; McMullin, p. 198; Ross, John Curtin, p. 173.

3   Sunday Telegraph, 24 March 1940, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

4   Ross, John Curtin, p. 171.

5   Letter (copy), Curtin to Anstey, 8 March 1934, MS 3939, Box 33, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

6   Speech by Rodgers, undated, MS 1536, Box 9, Folder ‘1926–78’, Don Rodgers Papers, NLA.

7   ADB, Vol. 10, pp. 209–11.

8   Chester, pp. 58–9.

9   Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979, p. 33.

10  Thorne, p. 34.

11  Robson (ed.), p. 175.

12  Martin, p. 219.

13  CPD, 27 April 1938, in Black (ed.), pp. 146–7.

14  CPD, 19 May 1938, in Black (ed.), pp. 147–8; E.M. Andrews, Australia and China: The Ambiguous Relationship, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1985, p. 79.

15  Ross, John Curtin, p. 176; Meaney (ed.), pp. 439–40; Martin, pp. 233–8; Paul Twomey, ‘Munich’, in Carl Bridge (ed.), Munich to Vietnam: Australia’s Relations with Britain and the United States since the 1930s, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1991.

16  Lloyd Ross wrongly has her dying in 1930. Ross, John Curtin, p. 69.

17  Transcript of interview with Elsie Macleod, Battye Library, Perth, p. 9.

18  Letter, Curtin to Yatala Ovenden, 4 October 1938, MS 10711, George Ovenden Papers, La Trobe Collection, State Library of Victoria.

19  For Lyons’s view of the Sudeten crisis, see Meaney (ed.), pp. 439–41.

20  CPD, 27 September 1938, in Black (ed.), pp. 148–9.

21  Robson (ed.), Australian Commentaries: Select Articles from the Round Table 1911–1942, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1975, p. 181.

22  CPD, 5 October 1938, in Black (ed.), pp. 149–50.

23  Robson (ed.), Australian Commentaries, p. 182.

24  Fitzhardinge, Vol. 2, p. 647.

25  CPD, 2 November 1938, in Black (ed.), p. 150.

26  CPD, 6 December 1938, in Meaney (ed.), pp. 441–4.

27  E.M. Andrews, ‘The Australian Government and Appeasement’, in Australian Journal of Politics and History, April, 1967.

28  CPD, 6 December 1938, in Meaney (ed.), p. 444.

29  Robin Gollan, Revolutionaries and Reformists, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1975, pp. 40–1.

30  Ross has provided two slightly different accounts of this meeting with Curtin. Draft introduction to a biography of John Curtin by Lloyd Ross, p. 6, MS 3939, Box 29, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA; Ross, John Curtin for Labor and for Australia; Black (ed.), pp. 139–40.

31  Information regarding Curtin’s drinking sessions was supplied by a reliable Perth informant on conditions of anonymity.

32  Ross, John Curtin for Labor and for Australia, p. 9.

33  Letter, Curtin to James, 8 January 1939, Sir Walter James Correspondence, 1925–39, CY Reel 322, ML MSS 412/8/694–5, Mitchell Library, Sydney.

34  Letter (copy), Murdoch to Clive Baillieu, 4 January 1939, MS 2823/1/11, Sir Keith Murdoch Papers, NLA.

35  Daily News, 23 March 1939, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

36  Russel Ward, A Nation for a Continent, Heinemann, Melbourne, 1985, pp. 226–30; Martin, Chaps. 11 and 12.

37  CPD, 20 April 1939, in Black (ed.), pp. 152–3.

38  CPD, 10 May 1939, in Black (ed.), pp. 153–4.

39  Diane Langmore claims that the war prevented the move, but Elsie Macleod maintains that she teamed up with her father to stop it. Langmore, p. 129; Interview by the author with Elsie Macleod, 22 November 1997.

40  Argus, 15 March 1939, Cited in Crowley (ed.), p. 597; Martin, p. 280.

41  See Black (ed.), pp. 151, 154–5; McMullin, p. 199; Meaney (ed.), pp. 451–2.

42  Robson (ed.), p. 186; Beazley, p. 7; Black (ed.), pp. 155–6.

43  Letter, Curtin to James, 8 January 1939, Sir Walter James Correspondence, 1925–39, CY Reel 322, ML MSS 412/8/694–5, Mitchell Library, Sydney.

44  Lee, p. 68.

45  Smith’s Weekly, c1939, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

30 – ‘the twilight through which we have to pass’

1   Menzies argued that it was ‘not possible for Australia to be neutral in a British war’. Alan Watt, The Evolution of Australian Foreign Policy, 1938–1965, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1968, p. 20.

2   Catholic Worker, 2 September 1939, in Gollan, p. 89.

3   CPD, 6 September 1939, in Meaney (ed.), pp. 455–6; Ross, John Curtin, pp. 182–3; McMullin, p. 200.

4   CPD, 6 September 1939, in Black (ed.), p. 158.

5   Letter, Curtin to James, 8 January 1939, Sir Walter James Correspondence, 1925–39, CY Reel 322, ML MSS 412/8/694–5, Mitchell Library, Sydney.

6   Radio Broadcast by Curtin, 10 September 1939, in Black (ed.), pp. 159–62.

7   Healey, pp. 116–17; Ross, John Curtin, p. 184; Martin, p. 287.

8   CPD, 7 September 1939, in Black (ed.), p. 162.

9   Black (ed.), p. 162.

10  David Day, The Great Betrayal: Britain, Australia and the Onset of the Pacific War, 1939–42, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1988, pp. 21–9; Horner, pp. 288–93.

11  CPD, 29 November 1939, in Black (ed.), pp. 164–5.

12  John McCarthy, ‘The Defence of Australia and the Empire Air Training Scheme 1939–42’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, December 1974; Horner, High Command, pp. 27–8.

13  See David Day, Menzies and Churchill at War, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1986, Chap. 1; Ross, John Curtin, p. 185. Interestingly, Menzies’s most recent biographer ignores completely his subject’s prolonged attempts with Bruce to reach a negotiated settlement. See Martin, Robert Menzies.

14  CPD, 16 November 1939, in Black (ed.), p. 164; Ross, John Curtin, pp. 184–6.

15  Day, Menzies and Churchill at War, p. 13.

16  Ross, John Curtin, p. 184.

17  Martin, pp. 294–5.

18  Sunday Telegraph, Sydney, 24 March 1940, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

19  West Australian, 27 March 1940, in Black (ed.), p. 167; Ross, John Curtin, pp. 187–8; Gollan, p. 92; McMullin, p. 201; Martin, p. 297.

20  Robin Gollan, Revolutionaries and Reformists, p. 89; Newspaper cutting, 20 April 1940, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

21  McMullin, pp. 201–2.

22  CPD, 15 and 28 May 1940, in Black (ed.), pp. 168–9.

23  David Reynolds, Britannia Overruled: British Policy and World Power in the 20th Century, Longman, London, 1991, p. 146.

24  Letters, Latham to Menzies, 20 June 1940 and Menzies to Latham, 22 June 1940, MS 1009/1/5459, Latham Papers, NLA.

25  Letter (copy), Latham to Curtin, 16 June 1940, MS 3939, Box 31, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

26  Curtin simply thanked Latham for his letter and looked forward to seeing him ‘when opportunity offers’. Telegram, Curtin to Latham, 22 June 1940, MS 1009/1/5463, Latham Papers, NLA. During one of the campaigns to have Labor join a national government, an eastern newspaper sent a telegram to Curtin asking whether it was not his duty to join a national government. Curtin reputedly ‘exploded’ at this, replying that ‘Jack Curtin needs no big papers to tell him what his duty to Australia is’. John Thompson, John Curtin: Portrait of a Prime Minister, ABC radio tape.

27  McMullin, pp. 202–3; Healey, pp. 116–19.

28  Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 7 June 1940.

29  ‘Notes of a Discussion in War Cabinet Room’, 12 June 1940, CRS A5954, Box 468, NAA.

30  McMullin, p. 203; Martin, pp. 295–7.

31  McMullin, p. 203.

32  CPD, 20 June 1940, in Black (ed.), pp. 170–1.

33  Westralian Worker, 23 February 1917.

34  Ross, John Curtin, pp. 192–3; McMullin, p. 204.

35  West Australian, 29 August 1940, in Black (ed.), p. 172; Ross, John Curtin, p. 195; Newspaper cutting c18 September 1940, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

36  Martin, pp. 302–6.

37  Letter (copy), Curtin to Makin, 23 September 1940, MS 1536, Box 9, Folder ‘1926–78’, Don Rodgers Papers, NLA.

38  Chester, p. 88.

39  Ross, John Curtin, pp. 195–7; McMullin, p. 204; Chester, pp. 88–9; West Australian, 23 September 1940, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

31 – ‘a new stage of urgency’

1   Peter Crockett, Evatt: A Life, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1993, pp. 33–4, 39.

2   Letter, Evatt to Charles Bennett, 2 May 1917, copy in the author’s possession.

3   Evatt had advised that his friend and liberal jurist Felix Frankfurter should be appointed. See Letter (copy), Evatt to Roosevelt, 11 November 1938, and Letter (copy), Benjamin Cohen to Roosevelt, 28 July 1939, MS 3939, Boxes 27 and 31, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA; McMullin, pp. 205–6.

4   Letter, Blackburn to Gerald Blackburn, 5 September 1940, in Dodd, p. 18.

5   Interview with Allan Fraser, in John Thompson, John Curtin: Portrait of a Prime Minister, ABC radio tape.

6   Speech by Rodgers, undated, MS 1536, Box 9, Folder ‘1926–78’, Don Rodgers Papers, NLA.

7   Letter, Curtin to Ross, 30 July 1935, MS 3939, Box 30, Folder 9, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

8   Martin, p. 308; McMullin, p. 206; Ross, John Curtin, pp. 198–9.

9   Article by Ross, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 22 June 1958.

10  Frank Anstey, draft biography by Lloyd Ross, pp. 82, 89–91, MS 3939, Box 11, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

11  White, p. 222.

12  David Horner, Inside the War Cabinet: Directing Australia’s War Effort 1939–45, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1996, p. 24.

13  Day, The Great Betrayal, pp. 93–104.

14  McMullin, p. 206; Martin, p. 311.

15  According to Lloyd Ross, it was one of the times that Curtin used ‘ill-health for political reasons’. Ross, John Curtin, pp. 200–1; Article by Lloyd Ross, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 20 June 1940; Crockett, p. 93; McMullin, pp. 207–8; Kylie Tennant, Evatt: Politics and Justice, (Rev. Ed.), Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1981, pp. 132–3.

16  Hasluck, Mucking About, pp. 308–9; Peter Kennedy, ‘Curtin, Hasluck . . . AJA odd couple’, Scoop, Vol. 10, No. 1, Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Perth, p. 12.

17  Letter, Blackburn to Boote, 14 December 1940, in Dodd, p. 102.

18  Ross, John Curtin, p. 218.

19  Letter, Curtin to James, 8 January 1939, Sir Walter James Correspondence, 1925–39, CY Reel 322, ML MSS 412/8/694–5, Mitchell Library, Sydney.

20  Ross, John Curtin, pp. 201–2.

21  Paul Hasluck, Diplomatic Witness: Australian Foreign Affairs 1941–1947, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1980, p. 46.

22  Letter, J.C. James to Ross, 12 December 1949, MS 3939, Box 26, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA

23  Transcript of an interview with Colonel John Buckley, 00122/1, JCPML.

24  See Letter, Elsie Macleod to Ross, 29 September 1958, MS 3939, Box 29, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

25  Australian Women’s Weekly, Sydney, 28 September 1940.

26  Southwell’s nephew, John Southwell, claims that it was his aunt who got Curtin off the booze. Telephone interview by the author with John Southwell, 31 March 1999.

27  Transcript of an interview with Horace Cleaver, 30 June 1997, 00207, JCPML.

28  Newspaper cutting, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

29  Paul Hasluck, The Government and the People, 1939–1941, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1952, p. 266.

30  Cable No. 510, Cranborne to Commonwealth Government, 23 December 1940, R.G. Neale et al. (eds), DAFP, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1983, iv, Doc. 236.

31  Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 31.

32  Newspaper cutting, 11 February 1941, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

33  Ken Buckley, Barbara Dale and Wayne Reynolds, Doc Evatt, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1994, p. 147.

34  Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, pp. 33–8; Day, The Great Betrayal, p. 118; Ross, John Curtin, pp. 203–4.

35  Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, pp. 36–7.

36  Day, Menzies and Churchill at War, p. 62.

37  Slessor diary, 27 April 1941, in Clement Semmler (ed.), The War Diaries of Kenneth Slessor, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1985, p. 267.

38  Westralian Worker, Perth, 2 May 1941.

32 – ‘we are ready to govern’

1   Menzies diary, 23 May 1941, in Day, Menzies and Churchill at War, pp. 187–8.

2   Gavin Souter, Acts of Parliament, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1988, p. 336; Martin, Chap. 16.

3   Letter, Evatt to Menzies, 24 May 1941, in Crockett, p. 93.

4   West Australian, Perth, 27 May 1941.

5   Souter, p. 336.

6   Transcript of an interview with Harry Krantz, 28 October 1996, Acc. No. 00186, JCPML.

7   Martin, p. 368.

8   Draft biography of John Curtin by Lloyd Ross, p. 110, MS 3939, Box 27, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

9   Interview with Curtin by Richard Hughes, Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 1 November 1941.

10  Comments by Don Rodgers in John Thompson, John Curtin: Portrait of a Prime Minister, ABC radio tape; Australian Women’s Weekly, Sydney, 28 September 1940.

11  CPD, 30 May 1941.

12  Newspaper cutting, 29 May 1941, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

13  Letter, Gowrie to Ross, c1949, MS 3939/28/4, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

14  Transcript of an interview with Adele Hodges (nee Mildenhall), 2 July 1997, Acc. No. 00211, JCPML.

15  Letter, Curtin to Adele Hodges, 11 June 1941, Acc. No. 00217/2, JCPML.

16  Transcript of an interview with Adele Hodges, 2 July 1997, Acc. No. 00211, JCPML.

17  Martin, pp. 366–71; Black (ed.), p. 180.

18  Martin, p. 371.

19  W.J. Hudson, Casey, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1986, p. 174.

20  Letter, Gowrie to Viceroy of India, 7 July 1941, MS 2852/4/21/23, Gowrie Papers, NLA.

21  By 12 July, Menzies was conceding to friends that he had ‘lost a tremendous amount of ground in the last month’ despite his dramatic announcement about an unlimited war effort. Martin, p. 372.

22  Day, Menzies and Churchill at War, Chap. 13.

23  Daily News, Perth, 12 August 1941.

24  Age, Melbourne, 13 August 1941.

25  Advisory War Council Minutes, 14 August 1941, CRS A2682/3/467, NAA.

26  CPD, 21 August 1941, in Black (ed.), p. 181.

27  Martin, pp. 374, 380–1.

28  Ross, John Curtin, p. 211.

29  Letter (copy), Curtin to Menzies, 26 August 1941, MS 2396/15/112, Ward Papers, NLA.

30  Letter (copy), Menzies to Curtin, 27 August 1941, MS 2852/4/21/23, Gowrie Papers, NLA.

31  List of Labor MPs apparently drawn up by Ward showing ‘Division on question of challenging Govt during Menzies–Fadden crisis’, 28 August 1941, MS 2396/15/115, Ward Papers, NLA; Ross McMullin has Calwell’s motion being lost by 35 votes to 15. McMullin, p. 210.

32  McMullin suggests this was Curtin’s main motivation for caution at this time. McMullin, p. 210.

33  Nicholas Hasluck (ed.), The Chance of Politics: Paul Hasluck, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 1997, p. 31.

34  Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, pp. 63–4.

35  Advisory War Council Minute, 8 May 1941, cited in Thorne, p. 64.

36  Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 72.

37  Tennant, p. 132; Souter, pp. 340–1.

38  Souter, p. 341.

39  Transcript of an interview with Gladys Joyce, 3 July 1997, Acc. No. 00210, JCPML.

40  Souter, p. 342.

41  Transcript of an interview with Gladys Joyce, 3 July 1997, Acc. No. 00210, JCPML.

42  Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 4 October 1941.

33 – ‘now let me go to work’

1   West Australian, Perth, 6 October 1941.

2   The telegram is reproduced in Black (ed.), p. 183.

3   John Thompson, John Curtin: Portrait of a Prime Minister, ABC radio tape.

4   Telegraph, Brisbane, 4 October 1941; Herald, Melbourne, 4 and 6 October 1941; Age, Melbourne, 4 October 1941; Argus, Melbourne, 4 October 1941; Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 4 October 1941.

5   Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 1 November 1941.

6   For an excellent study of Calwell’s psychological make-up, see Lindsay Rae, ‘Arthur Calwell: resentful ageing’, in Judith Brett (ed.), Political Lives, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1997.

7   McMullin, pp. 212–13.

8   Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 8 October 1941; Age, Melbourne, 8 October 1941.

9   Herald, Melbourne, 13 October 1941; Ross, John Curtin for Labor and for Australia, p. 15.

10  West Australian, Perth, 24 October 1941.

11  Interview by the author with Elsie Macleod, 22 November 1997.

12  Langmore, pp. 130–2.

13  Cable, Curtin to Churchill, 8 October 1941, A461/7, Item R4/1/2, NAA.

14  David Day, ‘Anzacs on the Run: The View from Whitehall, 1941–42’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, May 1986.

15  McMullin, p. 215; Heydon, p. 81; Hasluck, Diplomatic Witness, pp. 12–13; P.G Edwards, Prime Ministers and Diplomats, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1983, p. 132; Ross, John Curtin, pp. 225–6.

16  Edwards, Prime Ministers and Diplomats, p. 134.

17  Letter, Nettie Palmer to C. Hartley Grattan, 12 November 1941, Vivian Smith (ed.), Letters of Vance and Nettie Palmer 1915–1963, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1977, p. 171.

18  Letter, M.F. Troy, Western Australian Agent-General in London, to Curtin, 6 October 1941, Letter (copy), Curtin to Troy, 29 October 1941, A461/7, Item R4/1/12, NAA.

19  Ross, John Curtin, p. 223.

20  Sydney Morning Herald, 29 October 1941.

21  McMullin, p. 214.

22  War Cabinet Minutes, 15 and 18 October 1941, A2673/8/1412, NAA.

23  Advisory War Council Minutes, 7 November 1941, A2682/3/560–63, NAA.

24  Norman Carlyon, I Remember Blamey, Macmillan, Melbourne, 1980, pp. 76–7; Ross, John Curtin, p. 237.

25  ‘People who have called upon Mrs. Curtin or left Cards, [frm 25 Nov.] Up to 2nd December, 1941’, M1416/1, Item 54, NAA; A copy of Kawai’s book was among Curtin’s remaining library in his Cottesloe home when visited by the author in November 1997. Tatsuo Kawai, The Goal of Japanese Expansion, Tokyo, 1938; Talk with Masumi Kawai, Tokyo, May 1999; Cable, Kawai to Matsuoka, 7 May 1941, A.6.6.0.1–1–6, Domestic Affairs (Australia), Diplomatic Record Office, Tokyo. I am grateful to Professor Yoichi Kibata of the University of Tokyo for locating and translating this document and for also contacting the son of Tatsuo Kawai. Mr Kawai confirmed the friendship between his father and Curtin, a friendship that continued between the Kawai and Curtin families after the war.

26  Souter, pp. 343–4; Herald, Melbourne, 11 November 1941.

27  Postcard enclosed in a copy of Tom Mann’s Memoirs that comprised part of Curtin’s library in his Cottesloe home, as seen by the author in November 1997.

28  Ross, John Curtin for Labor and for Australia, p. 19.

29  It was a common enough belief for the time. His powerful mentor in Perth, Alexander McCallum, had returned from a visit to North America and Europe in 1928 declaring that ‘they cannot teach us anything in Australia, and we have not anything to learn from them’. McCallum argued that ‘the object we are trying to reach may be the same, but the method of getting there is altogether different’, and that in Australia he believed ‘we should be left to work out our own destiny’. Minutes of Meeting, Metropolitan District Council A.L.F., 6 September 1928, 1319A/300/1/2, Australian Labor Party Collection, Battye Library, Perth.

30  Ross, John Curtin, p. 189.

31  National Broadcast by Curtin, 14 November 1941, A5954/69, Item 2205/3, NAA.

32  Sydney Morning Herald, 20 November 1941.

33  Black (ed.), p. 187.

34  Article by Ross, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 3 August 1958.

35  John Robertson and John McCarthy (eds), Australian War Strategy 1939–1945, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1985, pp. 23–4; West Australian, Perth, 1 December 1941; ‘Curtin’, speech by David Black, 1998, Acc. No. 00323/1, JCPML; Langmore, p. 133.

36  Ross, John Curtin, pp. 239–40; Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, pp. 76–7.

37  Ross, John Curtin, p. 240.

38  Interview by the author with John Ovenden, 22 December 1998.

39  ibid.

40  Ross, John Curtin, p. 240; Horner, High Command, p. 135.

34 – ‘our darkest hour’

1   Ronald Spector, Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan, Penguin, London, 1987, pp. 1–7.

2   Souter, p. 344; Sunday Telegraph, Sydney, 6 December 1942.

3   Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, pp. 77–80, 216–22.

4   ibid.

5   Letter, Shedden to Curtin, 8 December 1941, cited in Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 80.

6   Ross, John Curtin, p. 241.

7   Sydney Morning Herald, 9 December 1941.

8   ibid.

9   McMullin, p. 209.

10  Sydney Morning Herald, 8 December 1941.

11  Sydney Morning Herald, 9 December 1941; Mercury, Hobart, 11 December 1941.

12  Cable, Mrs Curtin to Cpl L. Needham, Bonegilla Camp, Victoria, 9 December 1941, M1416/1, Item 54, NAA.

13  Mirror, Sydney, 11 December 1941.

14  Cable, Curtin to Mrs Curtin, 12 December 1941, M1416/1, Item 54, NAA.

15  Their destruction apparently followed the publication in 1958 of newspaper articles by Lloyd Ross in the Sun-Herald and elsewhere which revealed Curtin’s drinking problem. Interview by the author with Elsie Macleod, November 1997.

16  Press Statement by Curtin, 11 December 1941, A5954/69, Item 2205/3, NAA.

17  Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 84; Horner, Crisis of Command, pp. 35–6.

18  Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 81.

19  Letter (copy), Fadden to Curtin, 12 December 1941, MS 4936/31/497/9, Menzies Papers, NLA.

20  Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 84.

21  Souter, p. 345.

22  Report (copy), Gen. Iven Mackay G.O.C. in C., Home Forces to Minister for Army, 17 December 1941, MS 3939, Box 31, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

23  Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, pp. 86–7.

24  Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 25 December 1941.

25  Cable, Curtin to Churchill and Roosevelt, 23 December 1941, A3300/101, NAA.

26  Ross, John Curtin, pp. 249–50; Sydney Morning Herald, 26 December 1941; Draft biography of John Curtin by Lloyd Ross, p. 651, MS 3939, Box 27, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

27  Day, The Great Betrayal, pp. 235–7.

28  ibid., pp. 228–9.

29  Curtin’s message appeared in the Herald, Melbourne, 27 December 1941. It has been reprinted widely since then. The full text appears in Black (ed.), pp. 193–6.

30  Roger Bell, Unequal Allies, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1977, p. 48.

31  Argus, Melbourne, 31 December 1941.

32  Ross, John Curtin, pp. 248–9; Souter, p. 346.

33  Sydney Morning Herald, 30 December 1941.

34  Outline of a speech by Rodgers, no date; Note by Rodgers, 28 June 1976, MS 1536, Box 9, Folder ‘1926–78’, Don Rodgers Papers, NLA; McMullin, p. 216; Lee, p. 95; Day, The Great Betrayal, pp. 226–7; Nicholas Hasluck, Paul Hasluck –War Historian, 60-minute video.

35  Black (ed.), pp. 194–5.

36  Article by Lloyd Ross, Sunday Australian, Sydney, 9 January 1972. Ross gives a slightly different version of this letter in Ross, John Curtin, p. 254.

37  Bell, p. 49.

38  Memorandum, Shedden to Curtin, 9 January 1942, in Horner, High Command, p. 149.

39  ‘The Hour we Face’, undated broadcast by Price, A. Grenfell Price Papers, PRG 7/3/9, Mortlock Library, Adelaide.

40  Day, The Great Betrayal, pp. 245–6.

41  Letters (copy), Gowrie to Curtin, and Curtin to Gowrie, 8 January 1942, MS 3939/30/1, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

42  Letter, Curtin to Bessie Rischbieth, 16 January 1942, MS 2004/7/22, Rischbieth Papers, NLA.

43  Day, The Great Betrayal, pp. 240–9.

44  Lee, pp. 113–14.

45  South Australian Worker, Adelaide, 23 January 1942.

46  That, at least, was the public version of the reason for Curtin’s trip to Perth, although it is clear that he had been planning such a trip before it was supposedly forced upon him by colleagues concerned for his health. Sun-Pictorial, Melbourne, 22 January 1942.

47  Age, Melbourne, 22 January 1942.

48  Day, The Great Betrayal, pp. 248–9.

49  Transcript of an interview with Frances Shea, pp. 16–17, Battye Library, Perth; Interview by the author with Frances Shea, 20 November 1997.

50  Age, Melbourne, 24 January 1942; Sydney Morning Herald, 28 January 1942; Sun Pictorial, Melbourne, 22 and 27 January 1942; West Australian, Perth, 26 January 1942; Lee, p. 100.

51  West Australian, Perth, 26 January 1942.

52  Daily Mirror, Sydney, 27 January 1942.

53  Courier-Mail, Brisbane, 26 January 1942.

54  Telephone interview by the author with Thelma Mackinnon (nee Southwell), 31 March 1999.

55  Letter (copy), Menzies to Curtin, 14 February 1942, and Letter (copy), Curtin to Menzies, 16 February 1942, MS 4936/31/497/8a, Menzies Papers, NLA.

56  Cable, Wavell to Churchill, Roosevelt and Curtin, 14 February 1942, in Robertson and McCarthy (eds), p. 227.

57  Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 99; Cable (extract), Curtin to Churchill, 15 February 1942, in Robertson and McCarthy (eds), p. 230.

58  Harrison later claimed that Curtin arrived uninvited. However, it is clear from letters in Harrison’s papers that an invitation was extended to Curtin to attend the dedication of the church. Transcript of an interview with Rev. Hector Harrison, Acc. No. 00016, JCPML.

59  Letter, Curtin to Harrison, and newspaper cutting, MS 6277/1/4 and 5, Hector Harrison Papers, NLA; Newspaper cuttings, Acc. No. 00021/2, JCPML; Transcript of an interview with Rev. Hector Harrison, Acc. No. 00016, JCPML; Westralian Worker, 26 December 1919, in Black (ed.), p. 43.

60  Sydney Morning Herald, 17 February 1942.

61  Mercury, Hobart, 17 February 1942.

62  Ross, John Curtin, p. 259; Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, pp. 99–100; Day, The Great Betrayal, 264–6.

63  Speech by Curtin, 17 February 1942, A5954/69, Item 2205/1, NAA.

64  McMullin, p. 217; Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, Chap. 9; Article by Frank Green, Age, Melbourne, 6 June 1959; Fitzgerald, pp. 387–92.

65  Chester, p. 132.

66  Transcript of an interview with Gladys Joyce, 3 July 1997, Acc. No. 00210, JCPML.

67  McMullin, p. 217; Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, pp. 103–4.

68  Sydney Morning Herald, 20 February 1942.

69  Hasluck, Diplomatic Witness, pp. 43–4.

70  Joanna Penglase and David Horner, When the War came to Australia: Memories of the Second World War, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1992, pp. 81–90.

71  Transcript of an interview with Elsie Macleod, p. 31, Battye Library.

72  Sydney Morning Herald, 21 February 1942.

35 – ‘the blood and grief of war’

1   Cabinet Minutes, 17 February 1942, A2703, Vol. 1(C), NAA.

2   Ross, John Curtin, p. 260.

3   Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, pp. 102–3; Day, The Great Betrayal, pp. 265–6.

4   Cable, Curtin to Blamey, 20 February 1942, DAFP, Vol. 5, Doc. 349.

5   Bell, pp. 74–5; Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 105; Day, The Great Betrayal, pp. 266–7.

6   Bell, p. 74.

7   Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, pp. 99–100, 105–6; Day, The Great Betrayal, pp. 268–9; John Buckley, ‘Australia’s Perilous Year, January 1942–January 1943’, Defence Force Journal, September/October 1988; Transcript of an interview with Colonel John Buckley, Acc. No. 00122/1, JCPML.

8   Day, The Great Betrayal, p. 269.

9   ‘Curtin’, speech by David Black, 1998, Acc. No. 00323/1, JCPML.

10  Cable, Curtin to Churchill, 22 February 1942, in Robertson and McCarthy (eds), pp. 235–6.

11  Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 107; Day, The Great Betrayal, p. 270; Note by Evatt, 1 November 1950, in Tennant, p. 366.

12  Holloway, p. 4.

13  Cable, Curtin to Churchill, 23 February 1942, in Robertson and McCarthy (eds), p. 238.

14  Cited in Day, The Great Betrayal, p. 271.

15  Day, The Great Betrayal, pp. 273–7.

16  Menzies diary, 5 March 1941, in Day, Menzies and Churchill at War, p. 83.

17  Transcript of an interview with Gladys Joyce, 3 July 1997, Acc. No. 00210, JCPML.

18  McMullin, p. 214.

19  Transcript of an interview with Hilda McLaughlin, 26 October 1996, Acc. No. 00185, JCPML.

20  Transcript of an interview with Bill Ross, 26 October 1996, Acc. No. 00185, JCPML.

21  Lee, pp. 107–8; John Thompson, John Curtin: Portrait of a Prime Minister, ABC radio tape.

22  Letters, Boote to Curtin, 19 January 1942, and Curtin to Boote, 25 February 1942, in Ross, John Curtin, p. 264.

23  Penglase and Horner (eds), pp. 53–4.

24  Transcript of interview with Harry Krantz, Acc. No. 00186, JCPML.

25  Article by Ross Gollan, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 May 1942.

26  Broadcast by Curtin, 14 March 1942, A5954/69, Item 2205/1, NAA; Chester, p. 146.

27  ibid.

28  Day, Menzies and Churchill at War, pp. 243–4; Hudson, pp. 127–9; Martin, pp. 396–7.

29  Day, The Great Betrayal, pp. 292–6; Dispatch, Johnson to Secretary of State, 23 April 1942, in P.G. Edwards (ed.), Australia Through American Eyes, 1935–1945: Observations by American Diplomats, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1979, p. 66; Martin, p. 397.

30  Comments by Ken Hall, in Penglase and Horner (eds), p. 105.

31  Sydney Morning Herald, 19 March 1942.

32  Sydney Morning Herald, 19 March 1942; Cables, Casey to Department of External Affairs, and Curtin to Casey, 21 and 23 December 1941, A3300, Item 101, NAA.

33  Bell, pp. 69–70.

34  Spector, pp. 117–9.

35  Penglase and Horner (eds), p. 106.

36  Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, pp. 111–13.

37  Thorne, p. 370.

38  Ross, John Curtin, p. 274.

39  Herald, Melbourne, 31 March 1942; for details of Blamey’s life and military career in the Second World War, see Carlyon, I Remember Blamey.

40  Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, pp. 114–15.

41  Bell, p. 100.

42  Letter, Shedden to MacArthur, 15/4/42, enclosing two letters from Curtin, MS 3939, Box 30, Folder (ii), Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

43  Horner, In His Own Words, pp. 116–18.

44  Lee, p. 117.

45  Herald, Melbourne, 21 April 1942; Argus, Melbourne, 22 April 1942.

46  Transcript of an interview with Mrs Maurine Fraser (nee McLaughlin), 26 October 1996, Acc. No. 00185, JCPML.

47  McMullin, p. 215.

48  John Thompson, John Curtin: Portrait of a Prime Minister, ABC radio tape.

49  Anzac Day message by Curtin, 24 April 1942, A5954/69, Item 2205/1, NAA.

50  BBC Broadcast by Curtin, later replayed by ABC, 29 April 1942, A461/7, Item R4/1/12, NAA.

51  John Thompson, John Curtin: Portrait of a Prime Minister, ABC radio tape; Ross, John Curtin, pp. 283–4; Souter, pp. 349–50; Sydney Morning Herald, 11 May 1942.

36 – ‘morally and spiritually rearmed’

1   Souter, p. 350; Ross, John Curtin, 283–4.

2   Sydney Morning Herald, 11 May 1942.

3   National broadcast by Curtin, 8 May 1942, A461/7, Item R4/1/12, NAA.

4   Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 119.

5   ibid, pp. 118–9.

6   The details of the Coral Sea battle can be found in Spector, pp. 156–63.

7   Sydney Morning Herald, and Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 14 May 1942.

8   Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 4 October 1941.

9   Smith’s Weekly, Sydney, 27 June 1942.

10  For details of Evatt’s mission to Washington and London, see Day, ‘H.V. Evatt and the ‘Beat Hitler First’ Strategy: Scheming Politician or an Innocent Abroad?’, Historical Studies, October 1987.

11  Cable, Curtin to Evatt, 13 May 1942, DAFP, Vol. 5, Doc. 487.

12  Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 119.

13  Letter (copy), Pat Frank, US Office of War Information to Harold Guinzburg, 25 August 1942, MS 3939, Box 27, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

14  Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 3 June 1942.

15  Spector, pp. 166–77; Day, The Great Betrayal, pp. 339–40; Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 120; Horner, Crisis of Command, pp. 95–6.

16  Letter, MacArthur to Gowrie, 8 June 1942, Acc. No. 00263/3, JCPML.

17  National broadcast by Curtin, 17 June 1942, A461/7, Item R4/1/12, NAA.

18  Smith’s Weekly, Sydney, 27 June 1942.

19  Horner, Crisis of Command, p. 105; Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 134.

20  Telegraph, Brisbane, 17 August 1942.

21  Horner, Crisis of Command, pp. 114–19.

22  Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 137; Spector, pp. 190–4.

23  Sydney Morning Herald, 19 August 1942.

24  Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 20 August 1942; See also West Australian, Perth, 20 August 1942.

25  Courier-Mail, Brisbane, 20 August 1942.

26  Letter, Jean Garner to Isla MacPhail, 21 April 1998, Acc. No. 00192, JCPML.

27  Letter, J.A.J. Hunter to Ross, 6 June 1958, MS 3939, Box 29, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

28  Lee, p. 107.

29  Davison et al. (eds), Oxford Companion to Australian History, pp. 282–3; Courier-Mail, Brisbane, 18 and 19 August 1942; Sunday Telegraph, Sydney, 1942.

30  Sydney Morning Herald, 4 September 1942; Chester, pp. 148–50.

31  Letter, Curtin to Anstey, 16 December 1924, MS 3939, Box 28, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

32  Sun News-Pictorial, Melbourne, 4 September 1942.

33  Edited transcript of an interview with Alan and Jean Salisbury, 6 July 1997, Acc. No. 00206, JCPML.

34  Transcript of an interview with Hazel Craig, 1 July 1997, Acc. No. 00209, JCPML.

35  Transcript of an interview with Gladys Joyce, 3 July 1997, Acc. No. 00210, JCPML.

36  The revue was also presented at the Menzies Hotel in Melbourne on 24 October 1942.‘Battle for Australia!’, program, 24 October 1942; various correspondence between Curtin and others related to the staging of the revue, Acc. No. 00213/1–4, JCPML; Transcript of an interview with Eunice Coffey, 18 April 1998, Acc. No. 00208, JCPML.

37  Letter, J.A.J. Hunter to Ross, 6 June 1958, MS 3939, Box 29, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

38  Letter, Curtin to Roosevelt, 31 August 1942, Acc. No. 00266/1, JCPML.

39  Letter, Roosevelt to Curtin, 15 September 1942, Acc. No. 00266/3, JCPML.

40  Day, Reluctant Nation, pp. 48–9.

41  Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 139.

42  Day, Reluctant Nation, pp. 52–3.

43  Cable, Roosevelt to Curtin, 1 June 1942, MS 3939, Box 29, Folder (iii), Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

44  Background briefings by Curtin, 28 August and 8 September 1942, in Clem Lloyd and Richard Hall (eds), Backroom Briefings, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1997, pp. 80–1.

45  Horner, Crisis of Command, pp. 154–66.

46  Sydney Morning Herald, 11 September 1942.

47  Horner, Crisis of Command, pp. 165–70, 181–4.

48  Letter, Johnson to Roosevelt, 12 October 1942, Acc. No. 00266/3, JCPML.

49  Sunday Telegraph, Sydney, 4 October 1942.

50  ibid.

51  Sydney Morning Herald, 13 October 1942; Daily Mirror, Sydney, 13 October 1942.

52  Day, Reluctant Nation, p. 61; Background briefing by Curtin, 8 December 1942, in Lloyd and Hall (eds), p. 110.

53  Teleprinter message, MacArthur to Curtin, 10 October 1942, Acc. No. 00263/3, JCPML.

54  Argus, Melbourne, 23 October 1942.

55  Sunday Telegraph, Sydney, 25 October 1942.

56  Ross, John Curtin, p. 298; Bell, pp. 80–1; Day, Reluctant Nation, Chaps. 5 and 6.

57  West Australian, Perth, 1 May 1942; Sydney Morning Herald, 2 May 1942; Letter, Fadden to Menzies, 24 August 1942, MS 4936/40/573/8, Menzies Papers, NLA.

58  See for instance, Letter (copy), Pat Frank, US Office of War Information to Harold Guinzburg, 25 August 1942, MS 3939, Box 27, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA. A copy of this letter, which was critical of the restrictions on the use of the militia, was sent to Roosevelt by Elmer Davis with a note suggesting that ‘some of his comments seem to deserve study’. An even more devastating commentary on Australia and its defence forces was contained in an article written for the American Colliers Magazine. Although the article was killed by the censors, it was read by the US Army Chief, General Marshall, who sent a summary of it to Roosevelt. Memo, George C. Marshall to Harry Hopkins, 5 October 1942, MS 3939, Box 29, Folder (i), Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA; Cameron Stewart, ‘Curtin’s changes to the National Service Act’, in Horner, (ed.), The Battles that Shaped Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1994, pp. 282–8.

59  Chester, p. 144.

60  Argus, Melbourne, 11 and 12 November 1942; Herald, Melbourne, 11 November 1942.

61  McMullin, p. 222.

62  McMullin, pp. 222–3; Dodd, pp. 277–9; Ross, John Curtin, pp. 302–4.

63  Letters, Menzies to Curtin, 23 December 1942, and Curtin to Menzies, 24 December 1942, MS 4936/1/9/76, Menzies Papers, NLA.

37 – ‘the pride and lion of Labor’

1   New Year’s message by Curtin, 31 December 1942, A5954/69, Item 2205/1, NAA.

2   Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 19 December 1942; Herald, Melbourne, 23 December 1942.

3   Cable, B.J. Ball to Curtin, 8 January 1943, M1415/1, Item 76, NAA.

4   Herald, Melbourne, 5 January 1943.

5   Letter (copy), Gowrie to Viceroy of India, 14 January 1943, MS 2852/4/21/24, Gowrie Papers, NLA.

6   S.J. Butlin and C.B. Schedvin, War Economy 1942–1945, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1977, p. 159.

7   Lloyd and Hall (eds), p. 4; Ross, John Curtin, p. 243.

8   Teleprinter message, Curtin to MacArthur, 11 January 1943, Acc. No. 00263/3, JCPML.

9   Speech by Curtin, 4 October 1942, in Black (ed.), pp. 212–13.

10  Background briefing by Curtin, 30 December 1942, in Lloyd and Hall (eds), p.119.

11  Day, Reluctant Nation, p. 84.

12  Bell, p. 82; Thorne, pp. 166–7.

13  Sydney Morning Herald, 27 January 1943; Horner, High Command, p. 249; Black (ed.), p. 213.

14  Telegraph, Brisbane, 4 February 1943.

15  See Sydney Morning Herald; Courier-Mail, Brisbane; and Herald, Melbourne, all 5 February 1943.

16  Ross, John Curtin, p. 305; Black (ed.), pp. 217–8.

17  Background briefing by Curtin, 8 February 1943, in Lloyd and Hall (eds), pp. 137–8; Black (ed.), p. 218; Souter, pp. 355–6.

18  ‘Account of Visit of Revue “Battle for Australia” to Canberra during the War in Feb. 1943’, by Ivan Menzies and other documents by Curtin in this file, Acc. No. 00111/1–10, JCPML.

19  Transcript of an interview with Malcolm Mackay, 10 December 1995, Acc. No. 00126, JCPML; Curtin had earlier repeated his concern about the toll that the war was taking on his health, telling journalists on 2 February 1943 that the war ‘would outlast him’, adding that ‘he had been leader of a party for 71⁄2 years, a fact which meant a bit of a strain’. Background briefing by Curtin, 2 February 1943, in Lloyd and Hall (eds), p. 134.

20  Age, Melbourne, 8 January 1943; Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph reported on 20 December 1942 that Curtin’s thoughts during that week had often ‘wandered to Adelaide, where his only son, John, 23, was waiting to move to his battle station’.

21  Background briefing by Curtin, 30 December 1942, in Lloyd and Hall (eds), p. 121; Letter (copy), Ward to Curtin, 12 December 1942, MS 2396/10/123, Ward Papers, NLA; Herald, Melbourne, 11 March 1943; Sun, Sydney, 11 March 1943; Butlin and Schedvin, pp. 371–3.

22  Teleprinter message, McLaughlin to Strahan, 8 March 1943, A461/7, Item R4/1/12, NAA.

23  Ross, John Curtin, p. 314; Souter, p. 356; McMullin, p. 224.

24  Letter, Hunter to Ross, 6 June 1958, MS 3939, Box 29, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

25  Argus, Melbourne, 24 April 1943; Transcript of an interview with Hazel Craig, 1 July 1997, Acc. No. 00209, JCPML.

26  Transcript of an interview with Gladys Joyce, 3 July 1997, Acc. No. 00210, JCPML.

27  West Australian, Perth, 1 May 1943.

28  Letter (copy), Jones to Curtin, 21 April 1943, MS 3939, Box 31, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

29  West Australian, Perth, 3 May 1943.

30  West Australian, Perth, 1 May 1943.

31  For a detailed examination of the issue, see Paul Burns, The Brisbane Line Controversy: Political Opportunism versus National Security, 1942–45, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1998.

32  Burns, p. 148.

33  See Sydney Morning Herald, 28 May and 20 August 1943; Sun, Melbourne, 1 June 1943; Age, Melbourne, 31 May 1943.

34  Souter, p. 356.

35  Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 19 August 1943.

36  Canberra Times; Argus, Melbourne; Sydney Morning Herald, all 11 June 1943.

37  Penglase and Horner (eds), p. 183.

38  Memorandum, Johnson to Hull, 21 July 1942, Acc. No. 00266/2, JCPML.

39  Souter, pp. 356–7; Sydney Morning Herald, 23 June 1943; Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 19 August 1943.

40  Sydney Morning Herald, 25 June 1943.

41  Statement by Curtin, 30 June 1943, A461/7, Item R4/1/12, NAA.

42  Minutes of Conference of Commonwealth and State Ministers held at Melbourne, 14–15 July 1943, M1416/1, Item 71, NAA.

43  Sydney Morning Herald, 26 July 1943.

44  ibid.

45  Telephone interview by the author with Thelma Mackinnon (nee Southwell), 31 March 1999; Edited transcript of an interview with Alan and Jean Salisbury, 6 July 1997, Acc. No. 00206, JCPML; Transcript of an interview with Horace Cleaver, 30 June 1997, Acc. No. 00207, JCPML; Transcript of an interview with Rev. Hector Harrison, Acc. No. 00016, JCPML.

46  Martin, pp. 412–13.

47  Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 19 August 1943; Ross, John Curtin, p. 328.

48  Advertiser, Adelaide, 12 August 1943.

49  For details of Evatt’s trip, see Day, Reluctant Nation, pp. 109–35.

50  Day, Reluctant Nation, pp. 134–5; Hasluck, Diplomatic Witness, p. 93; Souter, pp. 357–8.

51  See Day, Reluctant Nation, pp. 113–14, 162–70.

52  Transcript of an interview with Hazel Craig, 1 July 1997, Acc. No. 00209, JCPML; Transcript of an interview with Gladys Joyce, 3 July 1997, Acc. No. 00210, JCPML; Mail, Perth, 14 August 1943; Sydney Morning Herald, 16 August 1943.

53  West Australian, Perth, 17 August 1943.

54  Newspaper cutting, 18 August 1943, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

55  Newspaper cutting, undated, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

56  Sydney Morning Herald, 20 August 1943.

57  ‘Curtin’, speech by David Black, 1998, Acc. No. 00323/1, JCPML.

58  Lee, p. 128.

59  Souter, p. 358.

60  Transcript of an interview with Gladys Joyce, 3 July 1997, Acc. No. 00210, JCPML.

61  Souter, p. 358.

62  ‘Curtin’, speech by David Black, 1998, Acc. No. 00323/1, JCPML.

63  Martin, p. 418.

38 – ‘a second Britannia in the Antipodes’

1   Curtin wrote these comments in a cable to the New Zealand Prime Minister, Peter Fraser, who had sent his good wishes as they entered the fifth year of war. Cable, Curtin to Peter Fraser, 3 September 1943, A461/7, Item R4/1/12, NAA.

2   Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 25 August 1943.

3   Letter, Eichelberger to MacArthur, 4 September 1943, General Douglas MacArthur’s Official Correspondence, 1942–1944, Microfilm reel 411, Acc. No. 00263/3, JCPML; Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 4 September 1943.

4   Sun, Sydney, 3 October 1943.

5   Sun, Melbourne, 13 September 1943; Sydney Morning Herald, 13 September 1943; Argus, Melbourne, 14 September 1943.

6   Souter, p. 361.

7   Courier-Mail, Brisbane, 21 September 1943.

8   Speech by Rodgers, no date, MS 1536, Box 9, Folder ‘1926–78’, Don Rodgers Papers, NLA.

9   Entry on Calwell by Graham Freudenberg, ADB, Vol. 13, p. 342; McMullin, p. 228.

10  Courier-Mail, Brisbane, 21 September 1943.

11  Sydney Morning Herald, 10 August 1943.

12  ibid., 21 October 1944.

13  Advertiser, Adelaide, 12 August 1943.

14  Sydney Morning Herald, 21 October 1943.

15  Background briefing by Curtin, 25 November 1943, in Lloyd and Hall (eds), p. 175.

16  Australian Worker, Sydney, 15 March 1944, in Crowley (ed.), Modern Australia in Documents, Vol. 2, pp. 97–8.

17  Sydney Morning Herald, 20 October 1943.

18  Day, Reluctant Nation, pp. 162–3.

19  Sun, Melbourne, 4 October 1943.

20  Letter, E.M. Robb to Curtin, 29 September 1943, M1415/1, Item 76, NAA.

21  Sydney Morning Herald, 6 and 7 October 1943; Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 6 October 1943.

22  Herald, Melbourne, 18 November 1943; Sydney Morning Herald, 19 November 1943.

23  For details of the indecision in London concerning Britain’s strategy in the Pacific War, see Day, Reluctant Nation and Horner, High Command, passim.

24  Letters, Curtin to MacArthur, 22 November 1943, and MacArthur to Curtin, 24 November 1943, General Douglas MacArthur’s Official Correspondence, 1942–1944, Microfilm reel 411, Acc. No. 00263/3, JCPML.

25  Transcript of an interview with Gladys Joyce, 3 July 1997, Acc. No. 00210, JCPML.

26  Sydney Morning Herald, 4 December 1943.

27  ibid., 20 August 1943.

28  Letter, Hunter to Ross, 6 June 1958, MS 3939, Box 29, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

29  Day, Reluctant Nation, pp. 180–1.

30  Letter (copy), Gowrie to Cranborne, 6 January 1944, MS 2852/4/21/25, Gowrie Papers, NLA.

31  Sydney Morning Herald, 16 November 1943.

32  Newspaper advertisement, undated, Acc. No. 00294, JCPML.

33  Ross, John Curtin for Labor and for Australia, p. 14.

34  Sydney Morning Herald, 7 December 1943.

35  Letter, Mary Gilmore to Curtin, 22 December 1943, MS 3939, Box 30, Folder 9, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

36  P.G. Edwards, ‘Labor’s Vice-Regal Appointments: The Case of John Curtin and the Duke of Gloucester’, Labour History, 1978; Background briefing by Curtin, 11 November 1943, in Lloyd and Hall (eds), p. 172; Ross, John Curtin, pp. 368–9; Letter (copy), Gowrie to Cranborne, 6 January 1944, and Letter, Campbell Stuart to Gowrie, undated, MS 2852/4/21/24–25, Gowrie Papers, NLA.

37  Sydney Morning Herald, 15 and 20 December 1943; Courier-Mail, Brisbane, 16 December 1943; Herald, Melbourne, 21 December 1943; Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 19 December 1943.

38  Background briefing by Curtin, 20 December 1943, in Lloyd and Hall (eds), p. 185.

39  Hasluck, Diplomatic Witness, p. 126.

40  Sunday Telegraph, Sydney, 26 December 1943.

41  Christmas card, Curtin to MacArthur, Commander–in–Chief Correspondence, 1942–1944, Microfilm reel 414, Acc. No. 00263/6, JCPML.

42  Herald, Melbourne, 27 December 1943.

43  Letter, Jessie Ayres to Ms Williamson, 4 May 1997, Acc. No. 00195/1, JCPML.

44  Sun, Sydney, 9 January 1944; Transcript of an interview with Gladys Joyce, 3 July 1997, Acc. No. 00210, JCPML.

45  Ric Throssell, My Father’s Son, (Rev. Ed.), em Press, Melbourne, 1997, p. 206.

46  Hasluck, Diplomatic Witness, p. 125; Sydney Morning Herald, 18 January 1944.

47  DAFP, Vol. 6, Doc. 26.

48  Hasluck, Diplomatic Witness, p. 126.

49  Sydney Morning Herald, 26 and 27 January 1944.

50  Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 26 January 1944.

51  Sydney Morning Herald, 18 February 1944.

52  ‘Lambie’ was Curtin’s pet name for their daughter. Letter (typescript copy, part only), Curtin to his wife, 12 February 1944, MS 3939, Box 32, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

53  Sydney Morning Herald, 18 and 21 February 1944.

54  Letter (copy), Fadden to Curtin, 18 February 1944, MS 4936/31/497/9, Menzies Papers, NLA.

55  Memo, Menzies to Hughes, 18 February 1944, MS 4936/40/573/15, Menzies Papers, NLA.

56  Letters, Menzies to Curtin, and Curtin to Menzies, 18 February 1944, MS 4936/31/497/9, Menzies Papers, NLA.

57  Letters (copy), Curtin to Spender, and Spender to Curtin, 23 February 1944, MS 4936/31/497/9, Menzies Papers, NLA; Sydney Morning Herald, 21 February 1944.

58  Telegram, Menzies to Hughes, 14 April 1944, MS 4936/40/573/15, Menzies Papers, NLA.

59  Memorandum, Menzies to Murdoch, 29 February 1944, MS 4936/40/573/15, Menzies Papers, NLA.

60  Age, Melbourne, 3 April 1944.

61  Sydney Morning Herald, 18 March 1944.

62  Sydney Morning Herald, 25 March 1944; Argus, Melbourne, 25 March 1944.

63  Letter, Prof. J.V. Duhig to Nettie Palmer, 21 November 1943, in Dodd, p. 129.

64  Argus, Melbourne, 3 April 1944.

65  Day, Reluctant Nation, pp. 206–7.

66  Age, Melbourne, 3 April 1944.

67  Sydney Morning Herald, 4 April 1944.

68  Letter (typescript copy), Curtin to Elsie and John, 4 April 1944, MS 3939, Box 30, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

39 – ‘I was not trained to be a war lord’

1   Langmore, p. 135.

2   Horner, High Command, p. 507.

3   Horner, pp. 314, 507; For a contrary view, which probably came from Blamey’s camp, one journalist on the ship claimed there was ‘excellent feeling . . . between the Prime Minister and the Commander in Chief . . . throughout the trip’. Argus, Melbourne, 21 April 1944.

4   Day, Reluctant Nation, pp. 212–13.

5   Entry on Calwell, by Graham Freudenberg, ADB, Vol. 13.

6   Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 21 April 1944; Herald, Melbourne, 24 April 1944.

7   Interview with Frederick McLaughlin recorded on his eightieth birthday, Acc. No. 00163, JCPML.

8   Newspaper cutting, cApril 1944, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

9   ‘Prime Minister’s Visit to England: Itinerary and Engagements’, Acc. No. 00129/6, JCPML.

10  Letters (copy), Roosevelt to Curtin, 3 January 1944, and Curtin to Roosevelt, 2 February 1944, Acc. No. 00266/3, JCPML.

11  Ross, John Curtin, p. 356.

12  Memorandum, Hull to Roosevelt, 22 April 1944, Acc. No. 00266/3, JCPML.

13  Warren Kimball, ‘“Merely a Facade”? Roosevelt and the Southwest Pacific’, in David Day (ed.), Brave New World: Dr. H.V. Evatt and Australian Foreign Policy, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1996, pp. 26–9.

14  Thorne, p. 486.

15  John Thompson, John Curtin: Portrait of a Prime Minister, ABC radio tape.

16  Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 25 April 1944.

17  Herald, Melbourne, 27 April 1944.

18  Sun, Sydney, 28 April 1944.

19  Langmore, p. 136.

20  Sunday Chronicle, London, 30 April 1944.

21  Elsie later claimed that she had been ‘dumped’ and was ‘very cross about it’. However, it seems that Curtin was so anxious about the long flight that he did not want to take the risk of their children losing both their parents. Langmore, p. 136.

22  Horner, High Command, p. 508; Interview with Frederick McLaughlin recorded on his eightieth birthday, Acc. No. 00163, JCPML.

23  Nottingham Journal, 1 May 1944.

24  Times, London, 1 May 1944.

25  Transcript of an interview with James Coulter, Acc. No. 00123, JCPML.

26  Interview with Frederick McLaughlin recorded on his eightieth birthday, Acc. No. 00163, JCPML.

27  Nottingham Journal, 1 May 1944.

28  West Australian, Perth, 2 May 1944.

29  Age, Melbourne, 3 May 1944.

30  Day, Reluctant Nation, pp. 101–2, 149.

31  Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 2 May 1944; West Australian, Perth, 3 May 1944; Age, Melbourne, 3 May 1944.

32  Lloyd Ross claims that he was ‘moody’ and ‘very lonely’ and ‘clung to the consolation of his hotel’. Ross, John Curtin, p. 359; It was an image that Curtin was keen to present to his Australian audience, and particularly to his Labor Party colleagues who feared their leader might be ‘duchessed’ by the British. West Australian, Perth, 9 May 1944.

33  Times, London, 5 May 1944; Daily Express, London, 6 May 1944; ‘Prime Minister’s Visit to England: Itinerary and Engagements’, Acc. No. 00129/6, JCPML.

34  Ross, John Curtin, p. 359.

35  ‘Prime Minister’s Visit to England: Itinerary and Engagements’, Acc. No. 00129/6, JCPML; West Australian, Perth, 30 May 1944.

36  Age, Melbourne, 3 May 1944.

37  ‘Prime Minister’s Visit to England: Itinerary and Engagements’, Acc. No. 00129/6, JCPML; Article by Lloyd Ross, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 10 August 1958.

38  Times, London, 4 and 5 May 1944; Daily Express, London, 5 May 1944.

39  Broadcast by Curtin, 7 May 1944, Acc. No. 00129/6, JCPML; See also Herald, Melbourne, 8 May 1944; Sydney Morning Herald, 9 May 1944.

40  Times, London, 11 May 1944; See also Ross, John Curtin, pp. 358–9.

41  Day, Reluctant Nation, p. 211; Edwards, p. 157; for the details of the proposal presented by Curtin on 15 May 1944 for closer imperial cooperation, see ‘Improvements in the Machinery for Empire Co–operation desired by the Australian Government’, Memorandum by Curtin, 15 May 1944, Acc. No. 00129/26, JCPML.

42  Draft biography of John Curtin by Lloyd Ross, p. 787, MS 3939, Box 27, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA; Article by Lloyd Ross, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 10 August 1958.

43  Westralian Worker, 6 May 1921 and 1 June 1928, and speech by Curtin, 7 August 1930, in Black (ed.), pp. 70–1, 92.

44  Freudenberg, p. 193.

45  Leonie Foster, High Hopes, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1986, pp. 109–10.

46  Day, Reluctant Nation, pp. 221–2; Horner, High Command, pp. 316–26; Alice Cawte, Atomic Australia, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 1992, pp. 4–6.

47  Times, London, 18 May 1944.

48  Address by Curtin to the Empire Parliamentary Association, 17 May 1944, Acc. No. 00129/6, JCPML.

49  Times, London, 19 May 1944.

50  Langmore, p. 136; West Australian, Perth, 30 May 1944.

51  Manchester Guardian, 22 May 1944; Daily Mail, London, 22 May 1944.

52  Letters, Combined Chiefs of Staff to Shedden, 3 June 1944, and Curtin to Roosevelt, 5 June 1944, Acc. No. 00266/3, JCPML; Sydney Morning Herald, 7 June 1944.

53  ‘Prime Minister’s Visit to England: Itinerary and Engagements’, Acc. No. 00129/6, JCPML. Speech by Don Rodgers, no date, MS 1536, Box 9, Folder ‘1926–78’, Don Rodgers Papers, NLA

54  Telegraph, Brisbane, 26 June 1944.

56  Sydney Morning Herald, 10 July 1944.

57  Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 27 June 1944.

58  Langmore, p. 137.

59  Telephone interview by the author with Thelma Mackinnon, 31 March 1999.

60  Transcript of an interview with Gladys Joyce, 3 July 1997, Acc. No. 00210, JCPML.

61  Draft cable, Gowrie to Curtin, 13 June 1944, MS 2852/4/21/25, Gowrie Papers, NLA.

62  Sydney Morning Herald, 18 July 1944.

63  ibid., 26 July 1944.

64  Background briefing by Curtin, 14 July 1944, in Lloyd and Hall (eds), p. 219.

65  Advertiser, Adelaide, 27 July 1944.

66  Souter, p. 362; McMullin, p. 232; Letter, Theodore to Curtin, 18 August 1944, MS 3939, Box 30, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

67  Daily Telegraph, Sydney and Sydney Morning Herald, 23 August 1944.

68  Sydney Morning Herald, 1 September 1944.

69  Letter, Maher to the author, 18 May 1999; reminiscence of John Curtin by James Maher, Acc. No. 00046, JCPML; Australian, Sydney, 5 July 1995.

70  Letter, Curtin to Theodore, 22 August 1944, MS 7222/1/2, E.G. Theodore Papers, NLA.

71  Letter, Curtin to Mollie, 31 August 1944, MS 3939/30/9, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

72  Letter, Curtin to Yatala Ovenden, 19 September 1944, MS 10711, George Ovenden Papers, La Trobe Collection, State Library of Victoria.

73  Sydney Morning Herald, 22, 23 and 27 September 1944.

74  Lyons, pp. 92–5.

75  Telephone interview by the author with Dame Rachel Cleland, Perth, November 1997.

76  West Australian, 17 October 1944.

77  Argus, Melbourne, 18 October 1944.

78  Transcript of interview with Robert Hartley, p. 19, Battye Library, Perth.

79  Horner, High Command, p. 364.

80  Ross, John Curtin for Labor and for Australia, p. 21.

81  Ross, John Curtin, p. 370.

82  Herald, Melbourne, 8 November 1944; Gladys Joyce later claimed that Curtin ‘had the first heart attack on the train coming back from Perth’. Transcript of an interview with Gladys Joyce, 3 July 1997, Acc. No. 00210, JCPML.

83  Sydney Morning Herald, 7 November 1944; Argus, Melbourne, 7 November 1944.

84  ibid.

85  Sun-Herald, Sydney, 11 November 1944.

86  Langmore, p. 138.

87  Ross, John Curtin, p. 370.

88  Letter (part), Curtin to his wife, 23 November 1944, in Ross, John Curtin, p. 370.

89  Transcript of an interview with Gladys Joyce, 3 July 1997, Acc. No. 00210, JCPML.

90  Telephone interview by the author with Frank Curtin, 12 January 1999.

91  Letter (part), Curtin to his wife, 23 November 1944, in Ross, John Curtin, p. 370.

92  Letter, Hughes to Curtin, 22 November 1944, in Ross, John Curtin, p. 371.

93  Despite his problems, he took the time on 27 November to send the son of his old friend Danny McNamara a cheque on the occasion of his marriage. Curtin had been best man at Danny McNamara’s wedding in 1915. Transcript of an interview with John McNamara, 8 December 1995, Acc. No. 00125, JCPML.

94  Letter, Curtin to his wife, 29 November 1944, in Ross, John Curtin, pp. 370, 372. Ross wrongly dated the letter as 29 December but it is clear from the context that it should be 29 November. By 29 December, Curtin was back in Canberra.

95  Letter, Curtin to his wife, 5 December 1944, in Ross, John Curtin, p. 371.

96  Herald, Melbourne, 9 December 1944.

97  Letter, Curtin to his wife, 12 December 1944, in Ross, John Curtin, p. 371.

98  Transcript of an interview with Gladys Joyce, 3 July 1997, Acc. No. 00210, JCPML.

40 – ‘the lonely occasions which so often have been mine’

1   Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 28 December 1944; Herald, Melbourne, 28 December 1944.

2   Sydney Morning Herald, 29 December 1944; Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 9 January 1945; Daily News, Perth, 9 January 1945.

3   Sydney Morning Herald, 20 and 23 January 1945.

4   Sydney Morning Herald, 23 January 1945; background briefing by Curtin, 22 January 1945, in Lloyd and Hall (eds), p. 236.

5   Sydney Morning Herald, 23 January 1945; briefing note by E.H. Cox, 22 January 1945, in Lloyd and Hall (eds), p. 9; Letter (copy), Curtin to Dugan, 24 January 1945, A461/7, Item R4/1/12, NAA.

6   Ross, John Curtin, pp. 372–3.

7   Argus, Melbourne, 1 February 1945.

8   Sydney Morning Herald, 23 January 1945; Herald, Melbourne, 23 January 1945.

9   Statement by Curtin, 24 January 1945, cited by Lloyd Ross, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 17 August 1958.

10  Sydney Morning Herald, 6 February 1945.

11  Argus, Melbourne, 7 February 1945; Sun, Melbourne, 7 February 1945.

12  Souter, pp. 363–4.

13  For Menzies’s positioning of himself as the champion of the ‘forgotten people’, see Judith Brett, Robert Menzies’ Forgotten People, Macmillan, Sydney, 1992.

14  Ross, John Curtin, pp. 373–6; Black (ed.), pp. 249–51.

15  Speech by Curtin, 23 March 1945, in Black (ed.), p. 251.

16  Day, Reluctant Nation, p. 310.

17  Letter (copy), Curtin to Joyce, 16 March 1944, Acc. No. 00216/1, JCPML.

18  Article by Lloyd Ross, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 17 August 1958.

19  Hasluck, Diplomatic Witness, p. 127.

20  Argus, Melbourne, 6 March 1945.

21  Letter, Curtin to Jessie Gunn, 25 January 1909, MS 3939/30/9, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

22  Sydney Morning Herald, 3 March 1945; Argus, Melbourne, 6 March 1945.

23  Hasluck, Diplomatic Witness, pp. 152–5; Edwards, pp. 164–5.

24  Herald, Melbourne, 15 March 1945.

25  Sydney Morning Herald, 19 March 1945.

26  Sunday Times, Perth, 8 July 1945.

27  Letter, Hunter to Ross, 6 June 1958, MS 3939, Box 29, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

28  Sydney Morning Herald, 14 April 1945.

29  Black (ed.), p. 253.

30  From Katharine Susannah Prichard came a copy of her recent book, Potch and Colour, as ‘a slight remembrance’ on their anniversary. Curtin probably never got to read it. The book was among the remaining library in Curtin’s Jarrad Street home when the author visited in November 1997.

31  Lloyd Ross cited this conversation in a newspaper article in 1958 but, for some reason, did not give Southwell’s name other than to write ‘the grazier F____’. Cited by Lloyd Ross, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 17 August 1958.

32  Lloyd Ross, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 17 August 1958; Letter (copy), Curtin to Anstey, 8 March 1934, MS 3939, Box 33, Lloyd Ross Papers, NLA.

33  Age, Melbourne, 5 May 1945.

34  Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 1 May 1945.

35  On 2 May, the Brisbane Courier-Mail called on Curtin ‘to consider whether he has sufficient health and strength to supply . . . Australia’s need of vigorous and active national leadership’. Courier-Mail, Brisbane, 2 May 1945.

36  In his recollection of his visit to Curtin, Harrison claimed that it occurred on the same day as Australian troops landed at Balikpapan. But that was not until 1 July. It seems that he was confusing the Australian landing at Tarakan, which occurred on 1 May 1945. Transcript of an interview with Rev. Hector Harrison, Acc. No. 00016, JCPML.

37  Peter Charlton, The Unnecessary War: Island Campaigns of the South-West Pacific 1944–45, Macmillan, Melbourne, 1983; Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, Chap. 16; Horner, High Command, Chap. 17; Day, Reluctant Nation, Chaps 18–19.

38  Transcript of an interview with Rev. Hector Harrison, Acc. No. 00016, JCPML.

39  Letter, McLaughlin to Cross, 5 May 1945, A461/7, Item R4/1/2, NAA.

40  I am grateful to Bobbie Oliver for bringing to my attention Curtin’s apparent intention to stand for parliament in 1946.

41  Ross, John Curtin, p. 378.

42  Langmore, p. 140.

43  Herald, Melbourne, 24 May 1945.

44  Sydney Morning Herald, 14 June 1945.

45  McMullin, p. 233.

46  Sun, Sydney, 27 February 1950.

47  Transcript of an interview with Rev. Hector Harrison, Acc. No. 00016, JCPML; Article by Lloyd Ross, Sunday Australian, Sydney, 23 January 1972.

48  Article by Lloyd Ross, Sun–Herald, Sydney, 17 August 1958.

49  Transcript of an interview with Rev. Hector Harrison, Acc. No. 00016, JCPML.

50  A.A. Calwell, Be Just and Fear Not, Lloyd O’Neil, Melbourne, 1972, p. 58.

51  Brian Carroll, From Barton to Fraser: Every Australian Prime Minister, Cassell, Sydney, 1978, p. 107.

52  According to Arthur Shakespeare, editor of the Canberra Times, Curtin considered resigning in the last weeks of his life ‘but loyalty to his lieutenant overseas led him to defer the decision’. Canberra Times, 6 July 1945.

53  CPD, 10 May 1939, in Black (ed.), pp. 153–4.

54  Argus, Melbourne, 27 June 1945; Sun, Melbourne, 28 June 1945.

55  Holloway, p. 4.

56  Letter, Courtney to Harrison, 8 October 1960, MS 6277/1/4, Rev. Hector Harrison Papers, NLA.

57  Sydney Morning Herald, 3 July 1945, Truth, Sydney, 8 July 1945; L.F Crisp, Ben Chifley, Longman, Melbourne, 1963, p. 221.

58  Article by Lloyd Ross, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 17 August 1958.

59  Herald, Melbourne, 5 July 1945.

60  Transcript of an interview with Rev. Hector Harrison, Acc. No. 00016, JCPML; Herald, Melbourne, 5 July 1945.

61  Sun, Sydney, 27 February 1950; See also, John Thompson, John Curtin: Portrait of a Prime Minister, ABC radio tape.

62  Transcript of an interview with Rev. Hector Harrison, Acc. No. 00016, JCPML.

63  Sun, Sydney, 6 July 1945.

64  Reminiscence of John Curtin by James Maher, Acc. No. 00046, JCPML; Sydney Morning Herald, 7 July 1945.

65  West Australian, Perth, 9 July 1945; Crisp, p. 221.

Epilogue – ‘a lover of all mankind’

1   Although the churchyard at Stoke Poges has become linked to the poem, Gray denied that the poem described any particular churchyard. Roger Lonsdale (ed.), The Poems of Thomas Gray, William Collins, Oliver Goldsmith, Longman, London, 1969, p. 116.

2   In October 1940, Curtin claimed that ‘For 20 years it has been my habit on Sunday nights to devote at least an hour to reading poetry . . . Every man should read poetry – for the good of his soul.’ Sunday Telegraph, cOctober 1940, Unnumbered Volume of Newspaper Cuttings, Elsie Macleod Collection, JCPML.

3   H.W, Starr and J.R. Hendrikson (eds), The Complete Poems of Thomas Gray, Clarendon, Oxford, 1966, pp. 37–43.

4   Letter, Curtin to Yatala Ovenden, 19 September 1944, MS 10711, George Ovenden Papers, La Trobe Collection, State Library of Victoria.

5   Letters, J.E. Hedge to Menzies, 9 July 1945, and Menzies to Hedge, 13 July 1945, MS 4936/31/497/9, Menzies Papers, NLA.

6   Paul Hasluck, Light that Time has Made, p. 119

7   See Norman Lee, John Curtin: Saviour of Australia.

8   According to Rodgers, Curtin ‘showed no resilience when his last illness struck and he just drifted off to death’. Speech by Don Rodgers, no date, MS 1536, Box 9, Folder ‘1926–78’, Don Rodgers Papers, NLA.

9   Labor Call, Melbourne, 1 October 1931.