John Cramer (Australian politician)

Cramer was elected as Mayor of North Sydney in 1939 and served until his defeat as an alderman at the December 1941 municipal elections.[1][2] Later he was Chairman of the Sydney County Council. He was elected to the House of Representatives as the inaugural representative of the seat of Bennelong on its creation in 1949. In 1956, the Prime Minister Robert Menzies appointed him Minister for the Army, a portfolio he held until 1963.[3][4]

Cramer was the only Catholic in the Liberal Party parliamentary team, a fact Menzies would often joke about.[5]

In 1964 he was created a Knight Bachelor.[6] He retired from parliament before the 1974 election, and was succeeded by John Howard (later to become Prime Minister). He died on 18 May 1994, aged 98.

In 1922 he married Mary Therese Earls, a teacher, and his elder by two and a half years. The couple had four children: John, Erle, Bronwyn and Leonie.[7] For her four decades of service as a charity worker and community activist, Lady Cramer was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1971.

Dame Mary Cramer predeceased her husband by almost a decade, dying on 23 September 1984 (aged 91).[8]

• Cramer, John (1989). Pioneers, politics and people: a political memoir. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. p. 231. ISBN 978-0-04-442104-7.