Stanley Melbourne Bruce was born on 15 April 1883 in Melbourne, Victoria. He was educated at Melbourne Church of England Grammar School (1896-1901), and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University where he took a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1905. Between school and university Bruce had briefly worked in the Melbourne warehouse of his family's importing firm, Paterson, Laing and Bruce. In 1908 he became chairman of the firm's London Board, having acted in the position since the previous year. In 1907 he was also called to the English Bar. 
 
In 1915, Bruce joined the British Army and served at Gallipoli and Suvla Bay. He was awarded the Military Cross (1915) and the Croix de Guerre (1916) and attained the rank of Captain. He returned to Melbourne in early 1917 to attend to matters of the family firm, and was encouraged to stand as the Nationalist Party candidate for a by-election in the Federal seat of Flinders, Victoria. Bruce won the seat, holding it until 1929, and again from 1931 to 1933.
 
In 1921, Bruce was appointed the Australian Delegate to the League of Nations and at the end of the same year became Treasurer in the Hughes Ministry. In early 1923, when the Country Party refused to form a coalition with the Nationalists under William Morris Hughes as Prime Minister, Bruce became Prime Minister and Minister for External Affairs. He retained the appointments until the fall of his Nationalist Government in October 1929. During this period he also held the portfolios of Health (1927-28) and Trade and Customs (1928), and represented Australia at the Imperial Conferences of 1923 and 1926.

As Prime Minister, Bruce was a strong advocate of Empire cooperation in the fields of development, trade and defence. He reformed State-Federal financial relations, making the Loan Council the central body for public borrowing in 1928. His Government encouraged British migration and settlement to Australia, and in 1926 established the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). Bruce saw the need for the Australian Government to be better informed of events in Britain, and appointed R G Casey as his liaison officer in London and F L McDougall as his London-based economic advisor. Bruce's Government also oversaw the move of Parliament and some federal government departments to Canberra in 1927. In October 1929, the Bruce Government lost office over the issue of industrial unrest and the proposed abolition of the Commonwealth Arbitration Court. Bruce also lost his own seat. 
 
In early 1932 the United Australia Party, a grouping of Nationalist and former Labor Party members led by Joseph Lyons, won power and Bruce was returned to Parliament as the member for Flinders. He was appointed Assistant Treasurer (1932) and Honorary Minister and Australian Minister in London (1932-33) in the Lyons Government. He was also leader of the Australian Delegation to the Imperial Economic Conference in Ottawa (1932) and represented Australia at the World Economic Conference (1933).

In October 1933 Bruce resigned from Parliament upon appointment as Australian High Commissioner to Britain, a position he held until 1945. He represented Australia at the League of Nations (1933-39), and in 1936 was President of the League of Nations Council and of the Montreux Conference for revision of the Straits Convention. During World War II Bruce acted as a key conduit of information between the Australian and British Governments and represented the Australian Government in the War Cabinet and the Pacific War Council. In early 1942, as High Commissioner, he was also accredited as Minister to the Netherlands Court in Exile.

At the end of the war Bruce retired from the position of High Commissioner and, after briefly considering a return to Australian politics, turned to other activities. He was chairman of the World Food Council of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (1946-51) and became active on the boards of several companies, namely the British Finance Corporation for Industry, the London Board of Advice to the National Bank of Australasia Ltd, the London Board of the National Mutual Life Association of Australasia, the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, the British India Steam Navigation Company, and Royal Exchange Assurance. He was also the first Chancellor of the Australian National University (1952-61), although he remained living in London.
  
In 1947, Bruce was elevated to the peerage and given the title Viscount Bruce of Melbourne. He received honorary degrees at the Universities of Leeds (1937), Glasgow (1947), the Australian National University (1952) and St. Andrews University (1955) and was created an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society in 1944. 

Lord Bruce died in London in 1967. His widow, Lady Bruce (Ethel Dunlop Bruce, nee Anderson (CP 931)), whom he had married in 1913, died six months before him in March 1967.
 
Sources
 
Who's Who in Australia, 1959 and 1965
Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 7: 1891-1939
Brett, Judith, 'Stanley Melbourne Bruce' in M Grattan (ed), 'Australian Prime Ministers', New Holland Publishers, Sydney, 2000, pp.126-138
 

Unregistered agencies associated with person

1942- 1945: United Kingdom War Cabinet and Pacific War Council - Representative of the 
            Australian Government