The Organising Committee for the XVIth Olympiad was incorporated under the Companies Act 1938 on 17 September 1951. However, its formal meetings date from early the previous year. The purpose of the Organising Committee was to plan the Olympic Games held in Melbourne in November-December 1956. Its Chairman was initially Sir Frank Beaurepaire and, following his resignation in February 1951, later W S Kent Hughes. Harold Edward Holt, then Minister for Labour and National Service, was the representative for the Commonwealth Government on the Committee (and its Executive Committee) and attended his first meeting in that capacity on 11 March 1950. At some subsequent meetings, he was represented by A Priest from the Department of Labour and National Service (1). Holt also attended the final pre-Games meeting of the Organising Committee on 2 November 1956, but not the final post-Games meeting of its Executive Committee on 18 January 1957 (2).

This series consists of four folders. The first three are bound and numbered, with a typed sheet pasted on the front cover carrying the note ‘Received from Rt Hon H E Holt (Minister for Labour and National Service) who was the Representative of the Commonwealth Government on the Olympic Organising Committee, XVIth Olympiad 1956’. Folders 1 and 2 mainly include roneod copies of minutes of meetings of the Organising Committee and its various Sub-Committees, the most important of these being the Executive Committee, Finance and General Purposes Committee, Construction Committee, Press and Publicity Sub-Committee, Arts Festival Committee, Transport Committee, Housing Committee, Catering Committee, Broadcasting Committee and Technical Committee. Folder 3 includes copies of legal company documents, planning papers, correspondence, progress and annual reports, financial statements, news bulletins and programmes. Folder 4, created by National Archives to control some loose minutes of meetings of the Finance and General Purposes Committee, essentially relates to the wind-up of the Organising Committee in early 1957.

This series description was revised as part of the Prime Ministers Papers’ Project (January 2002).

Endnotes:

(1)   Minutes of meeting, 11 March 1950 (CRS M946, item 1)

(2)   Letter to R G Menzies, 7 November 1956 (CRS M946, item 2) and minutes of Executive Committee meeting, 18 January 1957 (item 4)