John Curtin was born at Creswick, Victoria on 8 January 1885, the eldest son of Irish immigrants, John Curtin and his wife Catherine (Kate) Agnes (nee Bourke). After attending various schools, he gained his first job as a messenger for The Rambler, a magazine edited by the artist Norman Lindsay. His involvement in politics began in 1902. Influenced by state politician Frank Anstey and the British trade unionist Thomas Mann, Curtin became active in the Tinsmiths’ Union and a member of Mann’s Victorian Socialist Party. In 1911 he became Secretary of the Victorian Timber Workers' Union, establishing and editing its monthly newspaper, the Timber Worker. In 1914 he gained Labor Party pre-selection in an unsuccessful campaign against W A Watt for the federal seat of Balaclava (Vic). Although not a pacifist, Curtin was active in the campaign against conscription during World War I, becoming Secretary of the Australian Trades Union Anti-Conscription Committee.

From 1917 to 1928 Curtin was editor of the Australian Workers’ Union weekly Westralian Worker. Now living in Perth, he was elected President of the Western Australian Branch of the Australian Journalists’ Association in 1920, and unsuccessfully contested the federal seats of Perth in 1919 and Fremantle in 1925. In 1924 the federal government appointed him as a member of the Australian delegation to the Sixth Session of the International Labour Organisation in Geneva, and in 1927 as a member of the Royal Commission on Child Endowment or Family Allowances.

Curtin entered the House of Representatives as the Member for Fremantle at the 1928 general election, but lost the seat at the 1931 general election. During this period he served on the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works. He subsequently acted as an advocate for the Western Australian Government on the Commonwealth Grants Commission (1934-1935).

Re-elected as the Member for Fremantle in September 1934, Curtin succeeded J H Scullin as Leader of the Labor Party on 1 October 1935 and was Leader of the Opposition during the successive governments of J A Lyons, Dr E C G Page, R G Menzies and A W Fadden. During 1936 and 1937 he was a member of the Empire Coronation Commission and, from October 1940, a member of the Advisory War Council. He was also a member of the Western Australian War Industries Committee (April-June 1941).

Curtin became Prime Minister on 7 October 1941, following the collapse of the Fadden Government. His wartime responsibilities also included Chairman of the Advisory War Council, member of the War Cabinet and Minister for Defence Co-ordination (from April 1942, Minister for Defence [III]). He retained these positions until his death, and also acted as Minister for External Affairs for extended periods in 1942, 1943 and 1945, during the absence overseas of the Rt Hon H V Evatt. In early 1944 Curtin attended the Conference of Dominion Prime Ministers in London, and visited Canada and the United States. He returned home exhausted and suffering increasing ill health, and died in office on 5 July 1945, six weeks before the end of the War in the Pacific.

Curtin was appointed a member of the Privy Council in 1942. Considered one of Australia’s greatest Prime Ministers, he was a strong advocate of Australia’s interests during World War II, resisting Churchill’s demands in the early years of the war and American dominance in the later period. Australia subsequently owed much to his Government’s successful post war planning of the early 1940s.

Curtin was survived by his wife Elsie (nee Needham) (CP 947), whom he had married in 1917.

This person registration was revised as part of the Prime Ministers Papers’ Project (July 2002).

Sources

Australian Dictionary of Biography 1940-1980

Australian Encyclopaedia (Sydney, Grolier Society, 1963), Vol 3, pp 156-157

Commonwealth Parliamentary Handbook, 8^th ed (1931-1935), 10^th ed (1938-1945), 24^th ed (1988)

Day, David, 'John Curtin' in M Grattan (ed), Australian Prime Ministers, (Sydney, New Holland, 2000), pp 216-237

Who's Who in Australia 1944, 12^th ed, p 276

Unregistered agencies associated with person

1936 – 1937: Empire Coronation Commission - Member