Arthur William Fadden was born in Ingham in North Queensland, the son of policeman Richard Fadden. In 1913 he became Assistant Town Clerk to the Mackay Town Council and in 1916 was appointed its Town Clerk. During this period he studied accountancy and practiced as an accountant in Townsville Fadden first entered politics in 1930 as an alderman on the Townsville City Council. Elected to the Queensland legislative Assembly in 1932 as the Country and Progressive National party’s member for Kennedy, he lost the seat in the 1935 general election.
Fadden entered federal politics through a House of Representatives by-election in December 1936, succeeding Sir Littleton Groom as the Country Party member for Darling Downs (Queensland). He retained this seat at the general elections of 1937, 1940, 1943 and 1946. In 1949, following an electoral redistribution, he won the Queensland seat of McPherson and retained this seat in the elections of 1951, 1954 and 1955. He retired from politics at the end of the 22nd Parliament in 1958.
A backbencher for three years, Fadden became a junior Minister in the Second Menzies Ministry of 1940 within the Treasury and Supply and Development portfolios. After the death of J V Fairbairn in the Canberra air disaster in August 1940, he succeeded to the portfolios of Air and Civil Aviation. In the Third Menzies Ministry, following the October 1940 election, he was promoted to Treasurer and became a member of the Advisory War Council. After being elected Leader of the Country Party in March 1941 he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister.
When Menzies resigned as Prime Minister on 29 August 1941 Fadden replaced him, retaining the Treasury portfolio throughout his own Prime Ministerial term of office. He had been a member of parliament for less than five years. The Fadden Government was defeated in the House of Representatives barely one month later and he tended his resignation. On 7 October 1941, a change of government saw John Curtin become Prime Minister and Fadden became Leader of the Opposition. He was succeeded by Menzies in September 1943, but remained Country Party Leader and again became Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer when the Menzies Liberal-Country Party Government returned to power in 1949. Fadden retained the first two of these posts until March 1958, and the Treasury portfolio until his retirement from politics in December that year. He also acted as Prime Minister in Menzies' absence on several occasions (a consequence of being Deputy Prime Minister).
During the war years, including his term of office as Prime Minister, Fadden was closely involved in the discussions which led to the withdrawal of Australian troops from the Middle East and in major economic and wartime supply issues. As Treasurer, he presented a record eleven budgets. In the post-war years his portfolio coincided with an economic boom period and included the introduction of major changes to the taxation and banking systems in Australia.
Fadden married Ilma Nita Thornber (CP 946) in 1916, by whom he had three children. He became a member of the Privy Council on Curtin's recommendation in 1942, and was knighted in 1951 (elevated to GCMG in 1958). He was the last person to be invested by King George VI, and represented Australia at the accession of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. In retirement Fadden lived in Toowong (Qld), where he died in 1973 survived by his wife (Lady Fadden). The electoral division of Fadden in south-east Queensland was created and named after him in 1977. The Canberra suburb of Fadden is also named after him.
Publications
No collection of Fadden's personal papers is known to exist, although his memoirs (They called me Artie, Jacaranda Press, Brisbane) were published in 1969. Extracts from the memoirs were also published in the Melbourne Herald in July 1968, and an account of his term as Prime Minister ('Forty Days and Forty Nights') in Australian Outlook in 1973.
Sources
Cribb, M B, 'Fadden, Sir Arthur William' (Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1940-1980, Vol 14)
Fadden, Sir Arthur William, They called me Artie (Brisbane, Jacaranda Press, 1969)
National Archives of Australia, A463, 1958/131
Parliamentary Handbook 1951-1956, 12th ed (1957)
Unregistered agencies associated with person
07 Apr 1913 - c01 Jan 1916: Mackay Town Council - Assistant Town Clerk
c01 Jan 1916 - c30 Sep 1918: Mackay Town Council - Town Clerk
c01 Jan 1930 - c01 Jan 1932: Townsville City Council - Alderman