Earle Page

Politician

  • Born: August 8, 1880
  • Birthplace: Grafton, New South Wales
  • Died: December 20, 1961
  • Place of death: Sydney, New South Wales

Also known as: Earle Christmas Page; Earle Christmas Grafton Page

Significance: Earle Page became the prime minister of Australia in April 1939 following Joseph Lyons’s death. He served in several governments, including as deputy prime minister, treasurer, and health minister.

Background

Earle Christmas Grafton Page was born on August 8, 1880, in Grafton, New South Wales, Australia. The fifth of eleven children of Charles Page, an immigrant from England, and Annie (Cox) Page, of Tasmania, he grew up in Grafton. His father was a coachbuilder and blacksmith who struggled financially after the 1890s economic depression.

Page attended Grafton Public School before transferring to Sydney Boys High School on a scholarship for his last year. In 1895, he enrolled at the University of Sydney. Lacking the financial means for a medical education, he enrolled in the arts for his first year, excelled in his studies, and won a prestigious scholarship. He then studied medicine and graduated in 1902 with a medical degree.

Doctor, Entrepreneur, and Investor

Page began his career as a house surgeon at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in 1902. The next year, he returned to Grafton and became a junior partner in a local medical practice. In 1904, he bought out his partner and opened a thirteen-bed hospital, Clarence House, in South Grafton, an isolated rural community that lacked modern health care. The hospital’s rural setting contained many challenges, such as the lack of reliable electricity, and sparked in Page a lifelong desire to use technology to bridge regional inequities in health care and economic advantage.

Page also pursued several business opportunities. He invested in land, built dairy farms and a sawmill in Queensland, became part owner (later full owner) of a beef cattle property, and co-owned Grafton’s Daily Examiner. From 1913 to 1919, he was an alderman on the South Grafton Council. He favored the formation of a new state, and in 1915 he founded the Northern New South Wales Separation League. As an alderman, he advocated for measures to foster the economic development of the north coast, particularly for hydroelectricity and railway expansion.

During World War I (1914-1918), Page served in the Australian military. After enlisting in the First Australian Imperial Force Army Medical Corps in 1916, he served in military hospitals in Egypt, England, and France for a year. He returned to Australia in March 1917 and settled in South Grafton.

Political Career

Page was elected the mayor of South Grafton in 1918. He entered national politics on February 26, 1920, following his victory for a seat in the House of Representatives as an independent candidate representing Cowper in the 1919 federal election. He remained in Parliament until 1961.

Two days before taking office, Page and several other farmer-centric members of Parliament (MPs) founded the Country Party (now National Party), a centre-right party. He was elected its leader the next year. After the Nationalist Party, comprising the old Liberal Party and former Labor Party members, lost its majority under Prime Minister Billy Hughes in the 1922 election, Page formed a coalition government with the Nationalist Party’s new leader, Stanley Bruce. The new government became known as the Bruce-Page government, as Page negotiated five positions for Country MPs out of a total of eleven positions in Bruce’s cabinet, including the posts of deputy prime minister and treasury minister for himself. Page’s accomplishments included increasing federal aid to rural areas, abolishing the federal land tax, and separating the Commonwealth Bank’s trading and central bank functions. He established a tied-grants scheme to facilitate road building, a National Debt Sinking Fund, and a voluntary Loan Council (which became statutory in 1928). The latter resulted in the federal government gaining control of all public borrowing.

The Labor Party unseated the Bruce-Page coalition in 1930, but Page returned to government in 1934, when Joseph Lyons formed a coalition government with the Country Party. Lyons appointed Page the minister for commerce, a position he held through 1939. From 1937 to 1939, Page also was the minister for health and served as the deputy prime minister.

On April 7, 1939, Prime Minister Lyons died following several heart attacks. The governor-general appointed Page the caretaker prime minister the same day. He served as prime minister through April 26, 1939, when he was succeeded by Robert Menzies. In an attempt to return Bruce to office, Page gave a speech before Parliament in which he viciously attacked Menzies’s character and reputation. As a result, Page lost the support of the Country Party and he resigned as the party’s leader in September 1939. Page and Menzies reconciled and, in 1940, Menzies named Page minister for commerce, a post he held through 1941.

Page was Australia’s representative on the British War Cabinet (1941–42) and a member of the Advisory War Council (1942–45) during World War II (1939-1945). He returned to government as the minister for health from 1949 to 1956 in the coalition government of Menzies and John McEwen. As the minister for health, Page created and implemented the National Health Act (1953), Australia’s first comprehensive national health insurance program, which provided many free prescription drugs, free medical services for patients who were unable to pay, and subsidies for private health insurance premiums.

Page died of cancer in Sydney on December 20, 1961.

Impact

For much of his political career, Page advanced the interests of the rural north through policy initiatives that promoted economic development and planning. As the founder of the nation’s health insurance program, he advanced the interests of the entire country and shaped the future of Australia’s health care.

Page also influenced education. He was appointed the first chancellor of the University of New England, located in Armidale, New South Wales, in 1954 and served through 1961. In 1963, the university founded Earle Page College, named in his honor.

Personal Life

Page and Ethel (Blunt) Page, a nurse, married in 1906. They had five children: Mary, Earle, Donald, Iven, and Douglas. After Ethel Page died in 1958, Page and his longtime secretary, Jean Thomas, married the following year.

Bibliography

Bowen, Chris. “Sir Earle Christmas Grafton Page.” The Money Men: Australia’s Twelve Most Notable Treasurers. Melbourne UP, 2015.

Bridge, Carl. “Earle Page: The Politician and the Man.” Earl Page College Thirtieth Anniversary Series, 9 Mar. 1933. Page Research Center, www.page.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/EARLE-PAGE-LECTURE.pdf. Accessed 29 Apr. 2020.

Bridge, Carl. “Page, Sir Earle Christmas (1880–1961).” Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 11. MUP, 1988. Australian Dictionary of Biography, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/page-sir-earle-christmas-7941. Accessed 29 Apr. 2020.

“Earle Page.” Museum of Australian Democracy, primeministers.moadoph.gov.au/prime-ministers/earle-page. Accessed 29 Apr. 2020.

“Earle Page.” National Archives of Australia, primeministers.naa.gov.au/primeministers/page/. Accessed 29 Apr. 2020.

“Earle Page.” National Museum Australia, www.nma.gov.au/explore/features/prime-ministers/earle-page. Accessed 29 Apr. 2020.

Lewis, Daniel. “Turn of a New Page Might Revive Party.” The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 Mar. 2003, p.15. Business Source Complete, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=plh&AN=SYD-4YIFYE94PLCVWJDXDJO&site=eds-live. Accessed 29 Apr. 2020.

Wilks, Stephen. “Sir Earle Page.” Australian Policy and History, 18 Oct. 2017, aph.org.au/2017/10/earle-page/. Accessed 29 Apr. 2020.