FUNCTION AND CONTENT
This series consists of seven speeches given by Prime Minister John Curtin
in Australia and overseas during World War II. The ABC (Perth) copied the
speeches onto six reel-to-reel tapes from 16 gramophone discs.
The tapes are ‘National’ brand sound recording tapes, RT-7 (seven-inch
diameter). They are described as follows:
Tape 1: Austerity Talk, c October 1942; Talk on the death of Prime Minister
J A Lyons, 7 April 1939; Laying of foundation stone of American Legation,
Canberra, 4 July 1942.
Tape 2: Speech by John Curtin to America, 14 March 1942; Declaration of War
on Japan, 8 December 1941.
Tape 3: Address by John Curtin of Australia, speaking before the House of
Commons, Ottawa, 1 June 1944, Part (1).
Tape 4: Address by John Curtin of Australia, speaking before the House of
Commons, Ottawa, 1 June 1944, Part (2).
Tape 5: Address by John Curtin of Australia, speaking before the House of
Commons, Ottawa, 1 June 1944, Part (3).
Tape 6: Address by John Curtin, on receiving the Freedom of the City of
London, 10 May 1944.
Inside the box containing each tape there is a note giving the title, the
duration, and the opening and closing remarks of the speech. Where there is
more than one speech on a tape, the speeches are numbered ‘Cut 1’, ‘Cut 2’,
etc. The control numbers included in the notes (eg NB3221A, ABX302) are
probably the original gramophone disc numbers from which the recordings were
made.
FINDING AIDS
The Sydney Office of National Archives copied the six tapes onto four
compact discs in January 2001. The relationship between the tapes and the
compact discs is as follows:
Tape 1 - Compact Disc 1
Tape 2 - Compact Disc 2
Tapes 3, 4 and 5 - Compact Disc 3
Tape 6 - Compact Disc 4
The tapes are not available for reference. The compact discs are available
for reference and should be ordered as M1219/2.
ARCHIVISTS NOTE
The original 78 rpm gramophone discs were loaned to the National Archives
(WA) for copying by Mrs Elsie McLeod (Curtin’s daughter) in March 1972. The
copy tapes were registered as the series M1219/1 (ex AA1982/703) in December
1982. The series description was revised in early 2001, and amended in
September 2003 as part of the Prime Ministers Papers’ Project.