John Curtin

Prime minister of Australia (1941-1945)

• Born: January 8, 1885
• Birthplace: Creswick, Victoria, Australia
• Died: July 5, 1945
• Place of death: Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

Long a leader in the Australian Labor Party and a champion of social justice, Curtin served as prime minister of Australia, guided the country through the darkest days of World War II, and prepared it for peace.

Early Life

John Curtin was born in Creswick, a once-prosperous gold-mining town in the Australian state of Victoria. The son of a police officer, Curtin grew up in a poor Roman Catholic home. He attended public school but at age thirteen started working for a Melbourne printing company while completing his studies.

By the time he reached age twenty, Curtin had begun his lifelong involvement in the Labor Party. Greatly influenced by the speeches of Tom Mann, a British union leader who toured Australia from 1902 to 1908, Curtin attended the Australian Labor Party’s informal “college” to train speakers and ran for a seat in Parliament, but lost. The experience did develop his public speaking and knowledge of campaign strategies, both of which were to serve him well in the future.

Distinguished in appearance, Curtin retained his handsome features and solid physical characteristics until late in life, when recurring bouts of neuritis and the pressures of his office aged him and often left him exhausted and ill. Described in his youth as idealistic and sometimes radical, Curtin developed into a consummate politician: a shrewd observer, an astute judge of people, an adept campaigner, a manipulator when necessary, a conciliator, and a persistent negotiator. Yet he always cherished and guarded the early idealism that had led him to dedicate his life to improving the workers’ lot. As prime minister, he melded his ideals with political skill and thus gained his countrymen’s admiration for honesty and forthrightness.

When he married Elsie Needham in 1917, Curtin was deeply involved in a campaign for the House of Representatives; therefore, he and his new bride, the daughter of a businessman in Tasmania, spent but a few hours together on their wedding day. Such was to be the pattern of the Curtins’ married life, she at home in Western Australia rearing their daughter and son, he in the national capital, Canberra, and other parts of the country developing into an increasingly successful federal politician. Throughout the years, Elsie Curtin remained constant in her devotion to her husband’s career and personal needs; from the stable home she provided, Curtin drew the sustenance needed for his arduous public life.

Life’s Work

In 1916, Curtin gained his first public notice by opposing conscription, a policy promoted by Prime Minister William Morris Hughes that would require all eligible Australians to perform overseas military service. Arrested for failing to enroll for what he considered to be illegal conscription, he soon gained his freedom when the proclamation under which he had been detained was withdrawn; later a sedition charge was dropped as well.

Some Melbourne union leaders considered this idealistic young man too radical for their tastes: In 1916, they dispatched Curtin to faraway Perth in Western Australia to edit a union newspaper, the Westralian Worker. Two years later, though, he gained a seat in the national government’s House of Representatives, a seat he occupied intermittently until 1934. He traveled to Geneva in 1924 as the Australian delegate to the International Labor Conference.

In the mid-1930’s, Curtin began to talk seriously of the imminence of world war and Australia’s inevitable involvement. Ironically, while he spoke of increased defense spending, many in the Labor Party argued for disarmament. Nevertheless, highly regarded for his keen grasp of international affairs and economic issues as well as for his ability to heal party schisms, Curtin was elected in 1935 as Labor’s parliamentary leader. Four years later, when Curtin’s predictions of war had come true, Liberal prime minister Robert Gordon Menzies invited Labor to join an all-party wartime administration, an offer Curtin refused.

Instead, Curtin waited for his own party’s victory, an expectation fulfilled in 1941 when Labor gained a slim majority in the House and Curtin rose to prime minister barely three months before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The threat of Japanese invasion no longer a matter of speculation once the northern city of Darwin had been bombed, Curtin realized that the United States offered the only source of military help. The mother country, Great Britain, would not or could not defend its one-time colony. Curtin therefore persuaded the United States government to send General Douglas MacArthur to Australia as commander of a combined force that would not only defend Australia but also turn the country into a strategic base for the larger battle against the Japanese. Even though many Australians, especially the military leaders, objected to what they considered MacArthur’s high-handed ways and to the overpowering presence of the American troops, Curtin remained firm in his support of MacArthur’s policies. On another front, Curtin successfully defied Winston Churchill by refusing the British cabinet permission to send Australian soldiers to Burma, insisting that they should defend their homeland instead.

Vigorous in his demands for military defense of Australia and unrelenting in his efforts to turn a lackadaisical nation into one prepared for war, Curtin led his party to victory in 1943 with majorities in both the house and the senate. Labor still objected to overseas service for conscripts, but Curtin managed to get the law updated so that Australian forces might assist in the northward drive against the Japanese.

As the war drew to a close in 1944, Curtin and his wife traveled to the United States, where he met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom Curtin had at one point thought unconcerned about the Japanese invasion of Australia. Curtin’s dogged and sometimes unwelcome insistence had finally forced Roosevelt into acting on Australia’s behalf. Once together, these two leaders who had worked so diligently for peace soon reconciled their past differences in a spirit of mutual admiration. They talked of the postwar era and the necessary rebuilding a time neither of them was to see. Suffering from exhaustion and recurring illnesses all during the war years, Curtin died in Canberra on July 5, 1945.

Significance

Although Curtin may be remembered in part as a wartime prime minister, his vision encompassed far more than the winning of a war. The idealism that had distinguished his youth never waned, for he believed firmly that the sacrifices made during the war should bring about a better society, one with social justice for the individual and one without war. On the international level, he supported the formation of the United Nations, developed for Australia the ANZUS pact in 1951 with New Zealand and the United States, and encouraged the United States to continue its active role in the security of the South Pacific. On the domestic front, he laid plans for the employment of discharged military personnel, for the immigration to Australia of large numbers of Europe’s displaced persons, and for national economic advancement. In short, he envisioned the ideal society to which he had devoted his life, first as a minor functionary in the Labor Party, then as a fiery young representative, and finally as the party’s leader.

Curtin’s longest lasting and most significant effect on Australia, however, lay in his turning the country away from Britain to look toward the United States. First, convinced that the officials in London were willing to sacrifice Australia and New Zealand to save Europe, he called on Roosevelt, albeit initially a reluctant helper. Second, once MacArthur and the combined forces had completed their mission, Curtin recognized that the future of Australia should be more closely linked to the North American country with which it shared so much. At the outbreak of World War II, Australia still cherished its ties to Britain, historically, socially, culturally, and militarily the latter a hindrance that Curtin soon corrected. In severing military ties with Britain, however, unintentionally or not, he severed as well the other connections. In The Last Bastion (1984), a study of this period, Kristin Williamson observed that when the war began, “Australia had neither a diplomatic service nor an independent foreign policy; she was virtually a colony of England. The war years shocked the country into a national maturity.” It was toward this maturity that Curtin directed Australia, so that today it sees itself as neither British nor American but proudly Australian.

Bibliography

Barnard, Majorie. A History of Australia. New York: Praeger, 1963. A general history of Australia from its settlement onward. The chapters covering the years of Curtin’s public life provide a clear and objective picture of the events before, during, and after World War II.

Bolton, G. C. “1939-1951.” In A New History of Australia, edited by Frank Crowley. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1974. A detailed account of these important years in Australia’s history. Curtin’s part in predicting and then helping to implement changes emerges clearly against the backdrop of the political, economic, and social forces that were at work.

Day, David. John Curtin: A Life. Pymble, N.S.W.: HarperCollins, 1999. Day chronicles the events in Curtin’s life and political career, including a discussion of his leadership during World War II. Day maintains that Curtin was the first prime minister to encourage a sense of Australian nationalism.

Edwards, John. Curtin’s Gift: Reinterpreting Australia’s Greatest Prime Minister. Crow’s Nest, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, 2005. In this chronicle of Curtin’s life and political career, Edwards concludes the prime minister was a cunning politician who laid the foundation for modern Australia.

Horner, D. M. High Command: Australia and Allied Strategy, 1939-1945. Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1982. At times tedious but always detailed, Horner’s account covers not only the war in the South Pacific but also Australian involvement throughout the world. Extensive references to Curtin and the important role that he played both in the defense of Australia and in the war abroad. Offers a well-researched and full picture of highly complex events.

MacArthur, Douglas. Reminiscences. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. The sections dealing with MacArthur’s time in Australia and his relations with Curtin offer interesting insights into both men’s personalities as well as into the events in which they were key participants.

Overacker, Louise. The Australian Party System. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1952. The study takes up the development, operation, and overall effect of the distinctive party system that governs Australia. Special emphasis on the Labor Party and extensive references to Curtin’s role in its history, in particular during the crucial war years.

Potts, E. Daniel, and Annette Potts. Yanks Down Under 1941-45: The American Impact on Australia. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. A fascinating, well-documented history of the encounter between the Australians and Americans during World War II. Pictures, cartoons, and personal accounts add to the historical facts, which are presented in a lively manner. Many references to Curtin. Excellent background for one significant aspect of the war: the continuing impact of the United States on Australia.

Williamson, Kristin. The Last Bastion. New York: Lansdowne, 1984. A readable and imaginative account of the period covering Curtin’s tenure as prime minister, stressing that these years constituted “the last bastion” of British power in Australia and attributing the change in large part to Curtin’s leadership. Numerous personal notes on Curtin’s private life.

Wurth, Bob. Saving Australia: Curtin’s Secret Peace with Japan. Sydney: Hachette Livre, 2006. Chronicles Australia’s desperate attempts to prevent war with Japan during 1941.