Robert Menzies

After graduating from the University of Melbourne in 1916 with first-class honours in Law, Menzies was admitted to the Victorian Bar and to the High Court of Australia in 1918. Establishing his own practice in Melbourne, Menzies specialised chiefly in constitutional law which he had read with the leading Victorian jurist and future High Court judge, Sir Owen Dixon.[8] In 1920, Menzies served as an advocate for the Amalgamated Society of Engineers which eventually took its appeal to the High Court of Australia.[8] The case became a landmark authority for the positive reinterpretation of Commonwealth powers over those of the States. The High Court's verdict raised Menzies's profile as a skilled advocate, and eventually he was appointed a King's Counsel in 1929.

Menzies as Deputy Premier of Victoria

In 1928, Menzies entered state parliament as a member of the Victorian Legislative Council from East Yarra Province, representing the Nationalist Party of Australia. He stood for constitutional democracy, the rule of law, the sanctity of contracts and the jealous preservation of existing institutions. Suspicious of the Labor Party, Menzies stressed the superiority of free enterprise except for certain public utilities such as the railways.[26] His candidacy was nearly defeated when a group of ex-servicemen attacked him in the press for not having enlisted, but he survived this crisis. Within weeks of his entry to parliament, he was made a minister without portfolio in a new minority Nationalist State government led by Premier William McPherson. The new government had formed when the previous Labor government lost the support of the cross-bench Country Progressives.[27] The following year he shifted to the Legislative Assembly as the member for Nunawading. In 1929, he founded the Young Nationalists as his party's youth wing and served as its first president. Holding the portfolios of Attorney-General and Minister for the Railways, Menzies served as Deputy Premier of Victoria from May 1932 until July 1934.

Menzies, 1930s

In August 1934, Menzies resigned from state parliament to contest the federal seat of Kooyong in the upcoming general election for the United Australia Party (UAP—the Nationalists had merged with other non-Labor groups to form the UAP during his tenure as a state parliamentarian). The previous member, John Latham, had given up the seat in order to prepare for appointment as Chief Justice of Australia. Kooyong was a safely conservative seat based on Kew, and Menzies won easily. He was immediately appointed Attorney-General and Minister for Industry in the Lyons government. In 1937 he was appointed a Privy Counsellor. In late 1934 and early 1935 Menzies, then attorney-general, unsuccessfully prosecuted the government's highly controversial case for the attempted exclusion from Australia of Egon Kisch, a Czech Jewish communist.[28] The initial prohibition on Kisch's entry to Australia, however, had not been imposed by Menzies but by the Country Party minister for the interior, Thomas Paterson.[8]

Menzies had extended discussions with British experts on Germany in 1935, but could not make up his mind whether Adolf Hitler was a "real German patriot" or a "mad swash-buckler". He expressed both views with an inclination to the former, says historian David Bird. In published essays in 1936, he called for a "live and let-live" attitude.[29] He condemned Nazi antisemitism, in 1933 writing to the organisers of an anti-Nazi protest at the Melbourne Town Hall that "I hope that I may be associated with the protest of the meeting tonight against the barbaric and medieval persecution to which their fellow Jews in Europe are apparently being subjected".[30] In 1939, Menzies described that "history will label Hitler as one of the great men of the century".[31]

In August 1938, while Attorney-General of Australia, Menzies spent several weeks on an official visit to Nazi Germany. He was strongly committed to democracy for the British peoples, but he initially thought that the Germans should take care of their own affairs. He strongly supported the appeasement policies of the Chamberlain government in London, and sincerely believed that war could and should be avoided at all costs.[32][33] after the visit to Germany in 1938, Menzies wrote that the "abandonment by the Germans of individual liberty ... has something rather magnificent about it".[34] Menzies also praised the "really spiritual quality in the willingness of Germans to devote themselves to the service and well-being of the state".[35]

Menzies supported British foreign policy, including appeasement, and was initially reticent about the prospect of going to war with Germany. However, by September 1939 the unfolding crisis in Europe changed his public stance that the diplomatic efforts by Chamberlain and other leaders to broker a peace agreement had failed, and that war was now an inevitability. In his Declaration of War broadcast on 3 September 1939, Menzies explained the dramatic turn of events over the past twelve months necessitating this change of course:

In those past 12 months, what has happened? in cold-blooded breach of the solemn obligations implied in both the statements I have quoted, Hitler has annexed the whole of the Czechoslovak state. Has, without flickering an eyelid, made a pact with Russia, a country the denouncing and reviling of which has been his chief stock-in-trade ever since he became chancellor. And has now, under circumstances which I will describe to you, invaded with armed force and in defiance of civilised opinion, the independent nation of Poland. Your own comments on this dreadful history will need no reinforcement by me. All I need say is, that whatever the inflamed ambitions of the German Führer may be, he will undoubtedly learn, as other great enemies of freedom have learned before, that no empire, no dominion, can be soundly established upon a basis of broken promises or dishonoured agreements.[36]

Menzies went on to say that if Hitler's expansionist "policy were allowed to go unchecked there could be no security in Europe and there could be no just peace for the world".[37] However, in a letter written by Menzies on 11 September 1939, he privately urged for peace negotiations and the continuation of appeasement with Hitler.[38]

Meanwhile, on the domestic front, animosity developed between Sir Earle Page and Menzies which was aggravated when Page became Acting Prime Minister during Lyons's illness after October 1938. Menzies and Page attacked each other publicly. He later became deputy leader of the UAP. His supporters began promoting him as Lyons's natural successor; his critics accused Menzies of wanting to push Lyons out, a charge he denied.

In 1938, as part of the Dalfram dispute, he was ridiculed as Pig Iron Bob, the result of an industrial conflict with the Waterside Workers' Federation whose members had refused to load Australian pig iron being sold to an arms manufacturer in the Empire of Japan, for that country's war against China.[39] In 1939, he resigned from the Cabinet in protest at postponement of the national insurance scheme and insufficient expenditure on defence.

Declaration of War Broadcast, September 1939

With Lyons's sudden death on 7 April 1939, Page became caretaker prime minister until the UAP could elect a new leader. On 18 April 1939, Menzies was elected party leader over three other candidates. He was sworn in as prime minister eight days later.

A crisis arose almost immediately, however, when Page refused to serve under him. In an extraordinary personal attack in the House, Page accused Menzies of cowardice for not having enlisted in the War, and of treachery to Lyons. Menzies then formed a minority government. When Page was deposed as Country Party leader a few months later, Menzies took the Country Party back into his government in a full-fledged Coalition, with Page's successor, Archie Cameron, as number-two-man in the government. On 3 September 1939 Britain and France declared war on Germany due to its invasion of Poland on 1 September, leading to the start of World War II.^[17] Menzies responded immediately by also declaring Australia to be at war in support of Britain, and delivered a radio broadcast to the nation on that same day, which began "Fellow Australians. It is my melancholy duty to inform you officially that in consequence of a persistence by Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her and that, as a result, Australia is also at war."^[18][19] A couple of days after the declaration, Menzies recalled parliament and asked for general support as the government faced the enormous responsibility of leading the nation in war time. Page and Curtin, as party leaders, pledged their support for all that needed to be done for the defence of the country.[40]

Thus, Menzies at the age of 44 found himself a wartime leader of a small nation of 7 million people. He was especially worried about the military threat from Japan. Australia had very small forces, and depended on Britain for defence against the looming threat of the Japanese Empire, with its 100 million people, a very powerful Army and Navy and an aggressive foreign policy. He hoped that a policy of appeasement would head off a war with Japan, and repeatedly pressured London.[41] Menzies did his best to rally the country, but the bitter memories of the disillusionment which followed World War I made his task difficult; this was compounded by his lack of a service record. Furthermore, as attorney-general and deputy prime minister, he had made an official visit to Germany in 1938, when the official policy of the Australian government, supported by the Opposition, was strong support for Neville Chamberlain's policy of Appeasement. Menzies, then also holding the responsibility for the Department of Munitions created a couple of months earlier, led the Coalition into the 1940 election and suffered an eight-seat swing, losing the slender majority he had inherited from Lyons. The result was a hung parliament, with the Coalition two seats short of a majority. Menzies managed to form a minority government with the support of two independent MPs, Arthur Coles and Alex Wilson. Labor, led by John Curtin, refused Menzies's offer to form a war coalition, and opposed using the Australian army for a European war, preferring to keep it at home to defend Australia. Labor agreed to participate in the Advisory War Council. Menzies sent the bulk of the army to help the British in the Middle East and Singapore, and told Winston Churchill the Royal Navy needed to strengthen its Far Eastern forces.[42]

Australian Prime Minister, Robert Menzies, with his British counterpart, Winston Churchill, London 1941

From 24 January 1941, Menzies spent four months in Britain discussing war strategy with Churchill and other Empire leaders, while his position at home deteriorated. En route to the UK he took the opportunity to stop over to visit Australian troops serving in the North African Campaign. Professor David Day, an Australian historian, has posited that Menzies might have replaced Churchill as British prime minister, and that he had some support in the UK for this. Support came from Viscount Astor, Lord Beaverbrook and former WWI Prime Minister David Lloyd George,[43] who were trenchant critics of Churchill's purportedly autocratic style, and favoured replacing him with Menzies, who had some public support for staying on in the War Cabinet for the duration, which was strongly backed by Sir Maurice Hankey, former WWI Colonel and member of both the WWI and WWII War Cabinets. Writer Gerard Henderson has rejected this theory, but history professors Judith Brett and Joan Beaumont support Day, as does Menzies's daughter, Heather Henderson, who claimed Lady Astor "even offered all her sapphires if he would stay on in England".[43]

Menzies came home to a hero's welcome. However, his support in Parliament was less certain. Not only did some Coalition MPs doubt his popularity in the electorate, but they also believed that a national unity government was the only long-term solution. Matters came to a head in August, when the cabinet voted to have Menzies return to London to speak for Australia's interests in the War Cabinet. However, since Labor and the Coalition were level (both sides had 36 MPs), Menzies needed the support of the Labor Party in order to travel to Britain.[44] Amid rumours that Menzies's real intention was to launch a political career in Britain, Labor insisted that the crisis was too dire for Menzies to leave the country.[45]

With Labor unwilling to support him travelling to London and his position within his own party room weakening, Menzies called an emergency cabinet meeting. He announced his intention to resign and advise the Governor-General, Lord Gowrie to commission Curtin as Prime Minister. The Cabinet instead urged Menzies to make another overture to Labor for a national unity government, but Labor turned the offer down. With his position now untenable, Menzies resigned the prime ministership on 27 August 1941.[44]

A joint UAP-Country Party conference chose Country Party leader Arthur Fadden as Coalition leader—and hence Prime Minister—even though the Country Party was the junior partner in the Coalition.[46] Menzies was bitter about this treatment from his colleagues, and nearly left politics,[47] but was persuaded to become Minister for Defence Co-ordination in Fadden's cabinet.[48] The Fadden Government lasted only 40 days before being defeated on a confidence motion. On 9 October 1941, Menzies resigned as leader of the UAP after failing to convince his colleagues that he should become Leader of the Opposition in preference to Fadden. He was replaced as UAP leader by former prime minister Billy Hughes, who was 79 years old at the time.[49]

After his election victory, Menzies returned to the office of Prime Minister on 19 December 1949.

Foreign policy

Menzies in 1960

Menzies hosting a royal visit of Queen Elizabeth II

The Menzies era saw immense regional changes, with post-war reconstruction and the withdrawal of European Powers and the British Empire from the Far East (including independence for India and Indonesia). In response to these geopolitical developments, the Menzies government maintained strong ties with Australia's traditional allies such as Britain and the United States while also reorienting Australia's foreign policy focus towards the Asia Pacific. With his first Minister for External Affairs, Percy Spender, the Menzies government signed the ANZUS treaty in San Francisco on 1 September 1951. Menzies later told parliament that this security pact between Australia, New Zealand and the United States was 'based on the utmost good will, the utmost good faith and unqualified friendship' saying 'each of us will stand by it'.[53] At the same time as strengthening the alliance with the United States, Menzies and Spender were committed to Australia being on 'good neighbour terms' with the countries of South and South East Asia. To help forge closer ties in the region, the Menzies government initiated the Colombo Plan that would see almost 40 000 students from the region come to study in Australia over the four subsequent decades.[54] Recognising the economic potential of a burgeoning postwar Japan, Menzies, together with Trade Minister Jack McEwan and his new minister for External Affairs, Richard Casey, negotiated the Commerce Agreement with Japan in 1957. This trade agreement was followed by bilateral agreements with Malaya in 1958 and Indonesia in 1959.[53] With the Menzies government expanding Australia's diplomatic footprint in the region during its second term, a further six new high commissions and embassies were established in South East Asia from 1949 to 1966. Complementing Australia's growing diplomatic engagement in Asia, the Menzies government delivered a comprehensive aid programme to the region which comprised 0.65 per cent of Australia's Gross National Income by 1966.

While engaging Australia more closely with its neighbours in the Asia Pacific, the Menzies government maintained a strong interest in British and European affairs, especially the unfolding Suez Crisis of 1956. With the Egyptian leader Colonel Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal Company on 26 July 1956, Britain and France reacted angrily to Egypt's restriction on the free use of this waterway for international trade and commerce. Sympathetic to British interests, Menzies led a delegation to Egypt to try to force Nasser to compromise with the West. Although, at the time it was seen as confirming Menzies's status as a world statesman, it was of vital importance to Australia's shipping trade with Britain. Menzies publicly supported the Anglo-French invasion of Egypt during the Suez Crisis.

Elsewhere, Menzies publicly professed continued admiration for links with Britain, exemplified by his admiration for Queen Elizabeth II (whose 1953 Coronation he attended), and famously described himself as "British to the bootstraps". At a function attended by the Queen at Parliament House, Canberra, in 1963, Menzies quoted the Elizabethan poet Thomas Ford, "I did but see her passing by, and yet I love her till I die".

Defence policy

Menzies with Minister for the Navy John Gorton in 1961.

Confronting the challenges of the Cold War, the Menzies government shifted Australia to a policy of 'forward defence' as the most effective means of dealing with the threat of communism abroad. Australia's defence policy was conducted in close cooperation with the United States under the aegis of the ANZUS treaty. The Menzies government responded to successive communist insurgencies by committing Australian troops to the Korean War of 1950–51, the Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1960, the Borneo Confrontation of 1963 and to the escalating conflict in Vietnam in 1965. To strengthen defence ties with countries in the Asia Pacific region, the Menzies government signed the South East Asia Collective Defence Treaty (SEATO) as a South East Asian counterpart to NATO. On the domestic front, the Menzies government introduced a scheme of national service where 'call ups' were issued to 18-year-old men to undertake a period of compulsory military training. Established in 1951, the scheme ended in 1960 but was reintroduced in 1964 in the form of the National Service Lottery.

Economic policy

Menzies with Treasurer Harold Holt

Throughout his second period in office, Menzies practised classical liberal economics with an emphasis on private enterprise and self-sufficiency in contrast to Labor's 'socialist objective'. Accordingly, the economic policy emphasis of the Menzies Government moved towards tax incentives to release productive capacity, boosting export markets, research and undertaking public works to provide power, water and communications.[55] As Prime Minister, Menzies presided over a period of sustained economic growth which led to nation-building and development, full employment, unprecedented opportunities for individuals and rising living standards.

The Menzies Government pursued what became known as "McEwenism" – a policy of high tariff protection for the manufacturing industry, so that industry would not challenge the continuing high tariffs on imported raw materials, which benefitted farmers but pushed up industry's costs. This policy was a part (some argue the foundation) of what became known as the "Australian settlement" which promoted high wages, industrial development, government intervention in industry (Australian governments traditionally owned banks and insurance companies and the railways and through policies designed to assist particular industries) and decentralisation.

In 1951, the top marginal tax rate for incomes above £10,000 what is equivalent to $425,000 today, was 75 per cent under Menzies. from 1955 until the mid-1980s the top marginal tax rate was 67 per cent.[56]

Social reform

Menzies in 1963, towards the end of his reign in office.

In 1949, Parliament legislated to ensure that all Aboriginal ex-servicemen should have the right to vote. In 1961 a Parliamentary Committee was established to investigate and report to the Parliament on Aboriginal voting rights and in 1962, Menzies's Commonwealth Electoral Act provided that all Indigenous Australians should have the right to enrol and vote at federal elections.[57]

In 1960, the Menzies Government introduced a new pharmaceutical benefits scheme, which expanded the range of prescribed medicines subsidised by the government. Other social welfare measures of the government included the extension of the Commonwealth Child Endowment scheme, the pensioner medical and free medicines service, the Aged Persons' Homes Assistance scheme, free provision of life-saving drugs; the provision of supplementary pensions to dependent pensioners paying rent; increased rates of pension, unemployment and sickness benefits, and rehabilitation allowances; and a substantial system of tax incentives and rewards.[58] In 1961, the Matrimonial Causes Act introduced a uniform divorce law across Australia, provided funding for marriage counselling services and made allowances for a specified period of separation as sufficient grounds for a divorce.[59]

In response to the decision by the Catholic Diocese of Goulburn in July 1962 to close its schools in protest at the lack of government assistance, the Menzies Government announced a new package of state aid for independent and Catholic schools. Menzies promised five million pounds annually for the provision of buildings and equipment facilities for science teaching in secondary schools. Also promised were 10 000 scholarships to help students stay at school for the last two years with a further 2 500 scholarships for technical schools.[60] Despite the historically firm Catholic support base of the Labor Party, the Opposition under Calwell opposed state aid before eventually supporting it with the ascension of Gough Whitlam as Labor leader.

Parliament House Portrait of Menzies by Ivor Henry Thomas Hele, 1955

In 1965, the Menzies Government took the decision to end open discrimination against married women in the public service, by allowing them to become permanent public servants, and allowing female officers who were already permanent public servants to retain that status after marriage.[61]

Menzies turned 71 in December 1965 and began telling others of his intention to retire in the new year. He informed cabinet of his decision on 19 January 1966 and resigned as leader of the Liberal Party the following day; Harold Holt was elected unopposed as his successor. Holt's swearing-in was delayed by the death of Defence Minister Shane Paltridge on 21 January. Menzies and Holt were pall-bearers at Paltridge's state funeral in Perth on 25 January, before returning to Canberra where Menzies formally concluded his term on 26 January.[69]

Menzies' farewell press conference was the first political press conference telecast live in Australia.[70] He resigned from Parliament on 17 February, ending 32 years in Parliament (most of them spent as either a cabinet minister or opposition frontbencher), a combined 25 years as leader of the non-Labor Coalition, and 38 years as an elected official. To date, Menzies is the last Australian prime minister to leave office on his or her own terms. He was succeeded as Liberal Party leader and prime minister by his former treasurer, Harold Holt. He left office at the age of 71 years, 1 month and 6 days, making him the oldest person ever to be prime minister. Although the coalition remained in power for almost another seven years (until the 1972 Federal election), it did so under four different prime ministers, largely due to his successor's death, only 22 months after taking office.

On his retirement he became the thirteenth chancellor of the University of Melbourne and remained the head of the university from March 1967 until March 1972. Much earlier, in 1942, he had received the first honorary degree of Doctor of Laws of Melbourne University. His responsibility for the revival and growth of university life in Australia was widely acknowledged by the award of honorary degrees in the Universities of Queensland, Adelaide, Tasmania, New South Wales, and the Australian National University and by thirteen universities in Canada, the United States and Britain, including Oxford and Cambridge. Many learned institutions, including the Royal College of Surgeons (Hon. FRCS) and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (Hon. FRACP), elected him to Honorary Fellowships, and the Australian Academy of Science, for which he supported its establishment in 1954, made him a fellow (FAAS) in 1958.[71] On 7 October 1965, Menzies was installed as the ceremonial office of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and Constable of Dover Castle as appointed by the Queen, which included an official residence at Walmer Castle during his annual visits to Britain. At the end of 1966 Menzies took up a scholar-in-residence position at the University of Virginia. He presented a series of lectures, published the following year as Central Power in the Australian Commonwealth. He later published two volumes of memoirs. In March 1967 he was elected Chancellor of Melbourne University, serving a five-year term.[72][73] In 1971, Menzies suffered a severe stroke and was permanently paralysed on one side of his body for the remainder of his life. He suffered a second stroke in 1972. His official biographer, Lady McNicoll wrote after his death in The Australian that Menzies was "splendid and sharp right up until the end" also that "each morning he underwent physiotherapy and being helped to face the day." In March 1977, Menzies accepted his knighthood of the Order of Australia (AK) from Queen Elizabeth in a wheelchair in the Long Room of the Melbourne Cricket Ground during the Centenary Test.[74]

On 27 September 1920, Menzies married Pattie Leckie at Kew Presbyterian Church in Melbourne. Pattie Leckie was the eldest daughter of John Leckie, a Deakinite Commonwealth Liberal who was elected the member for Benambra in the Victorian Legislative Assembly in 1913. Soon after their marriage, the Menzies bought the house in Howard Street, Kew, which would become their family home for 25 years. They had three surviving children: Kenneth (1922–1993), Robert Jr (known by his middle name, Ian; 1923–1974)[75] and a daughter, Margery (known by her middle name, Heather; born 1928).[76] Another child died at birth.

Kenneth was born in Hawthorn on 14 January 1922. He married Marjorie Cook on 16 September 1949,[77] and had six children; Alec, Lindsay, Robert III, Diana, Donald, and Geoffrey. He died in Kooyong on 8 September 1993.[78] Ian and Heather were both born in Kew, on 12 October 1923 and 3 August 1928, respectively. Ian was afflicted with an undisclosed illness for most of his life. He never married, nor had children, and died in 1974 in East Melbourne at the age of 50.[75] Heather married Peter Henderson, a diplomat and public servant (working at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia at the time of their marriage, and serving as the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs from 1979 to 1984), on 1 May 1955. A daughter, Roberta, named after Menzies, was born in 1956. She was instrumental in the development of Canberra and the Australian Capital Territory, and lives in Canberra.[79]

According to Mungo MacCallum, Menzies as prime minister engaged in an extramarital affair with Betty Fairfax, the first wife of Sir Warwick Oswald Fairfax.[80] That claim was subsequently disputed by Gerard Henderson and Menzies's own family.[81][82]

Grave of Sir Robert and Dame Pattie Menzies, Melbourne General Cemetery

Menzies died from a heart attack[83] while reading in his study at his Haverbrack Avenue home in Malvern, Melbourne on 15 May 1978. Tributes from across the world were sent to the Menzies family. Notably among those were from HM Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia: "I was distressed to hear of the death of Sir Robert Menzies. He was a distinguished Australian whose contribution to his country and the Commonwealth will long be remembered", and from Malcolm Fraser, Prime Minister of Australia: "All Australians will mourn his passing. Sir Robert leaves an enduring mark on Australian history."

Menzies was accorded a state funeral, held in Scots' Church, Melbourne on 19 May, at which Prince Charles represented the Queen.[84] Other dignitaries to attend included current and former Prime Ministers of Australia Malcolm Fraser, John McEwen, John Gorton and William McMahon (The two surviving Labor Prime Ministers Frank Forde and Gough Whitlam did not attend the funeral), as well as the Governor General of Australia, Sir Zelman Cowan. Former Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom Alec Douglas-Home and Harold Wilson also attended.

The service was and is to this day one of the largest state funerals ever held in Australia, with over 100,000 people lining the streets of Melbourne from Scots' Church to Springvale Crematorium, where a private service was held for the Menzies family and a 19-gun salute was fired at the end of the ceremony. In July 1978, a memorial service was held for Menzies in the United Kingdom at Westminster Abbey.[85] Sir Robert and Dame Pattie Menzies's ashes are interred in the 'Prime Ministers Garden' within the grounds of Melbourne General Cemetery.

Some of Menzies's detractors also commemorated his passing in 1978, with a screenprinted poster, Pig Iron Bob / Dead at last, designed by Chips Mackinolty from the Earthworks Poster Collective.[86]

Menzies was the son of a Presbyterian-turned-Methodist lay preacher and imbibed his father's Protestant faith and values. During his studies at the University of Melbourne, Menzies served as president of the Students' Christian Union.[87] Proud of his Scottish Presbyterian heritage with a living faith steeped in the Bible, Menzies nonetheless preached religious freedom and non-sectarianism as the norm for Australia. Indeed, his cooperation with Australian Catholics on the contentious state aid issue was recognised when he was invited as guest of honour to the annual Cardinal's Dinner in Sydney 1964, presided over by Cardinal Norman Gilroy.[88]

Menzies was by far the longest-serving Prime Minister of Australia, in office for a combined total of 18 years, five months and 12 days. His second period of 16 years, one month and seven days is by far the longest unbroken tenure in that office. During his second period he dominated Australian politics as no one else has ever done. He managed to live down the failures of his first period in office and to rebuild the conservative side of politics from the nadir it hit at the 1943 election. However, it can also be noted that while retaining government on each occasion, Menzies lost the two-party-preferred vote at three separate elections – in 1940, 1954 and 1961.[89][90]

He was the only Australian prime minister to recommend the appointment of four governors-general (Viscount Slim, and Lords Dunrossil, De L'Isle, and Casey). Only two other prime ministers have ever chosen more than one governor-general.[91]

The Menzies era saw Australia become an increasingly affluent society, with average weekly earnings in 1965 50% higher in real terms than in 1945. The increased prosperity enjoyed by most Australians during this period was accompanied by a general increase in leisure time, with the five-day workweek becoming the norm by the mid-Sixties, together with three weeks of paid annual leave.[92]

Several books have been filled with anecdotes about Menzies. While he was speaking in Williamstown, Victoria, in 1954, a heckler shouted, "I wouldn't vote for you if you were the Archangel Gabriel" – to which Menzies coolly replied "If I were the Archangel Gabriel, I'm afraid you wouldn't be in my constituency."[93]

Jo Gullett, who first knew him as a family friend of his father, Henry Gullett, wartime Minister for External Affairs, and who later served under Menzies as a Liberal Party member of parliament himself in Canberra in the 1950s, offered this assessment.

It is difficult to exaggerate the pre-eminence enjoyed by Menzies for over a quarter of a century in the federal Parliament. He had many natural gifts, of which the greatest lay in the quality of his mind. His capacity to absorb and retain information, facts, opinion, prejudices was most unusual. He had a particularly logical mind, so that even in his conversation, let alone his set speeches and arguments, his remarks were always in sequence. Whether he was drawing on his memory, or making up his mind as he went along, each point he made reinforced the others and added to a logical and rounded whole. He spoke like this because it was the way he thought. He would have succeeded in anything that demands a logical intellect - science, generalship, high finance, the control of great organisations ... He had a beautiful speaking voice, clear, resonant and flexible. His appearance was impressive. Finally he had most of the virtues his countrymen and women liked and respected. He was not greedy. "I have never believed in making every bob (shilling) a prisoner," he once remarked to me. So he was generous. He was a good family man, a regular churchgoer. Yet he enjoyed a party, good food and drink, loved to watch the test cricket and was an Australian Rules football fan. He shared the tastes of the people he led. At the same time none was more able than he to touch chords of loyalty and pride in the traditions and history of the British people, especially that section of them who had settled in Australia. He made us proud of ourselves. We associated him with this pride.[94]

Planning for an official biography of Menzies began soon after his death, but it was long delayed by Dame Pattie Menzies' protection of her husband's reputation and her refusal to co-operate with the appointed biographer. In 1991, the Menzies family appointed A. W. Martin to write a biography, which appeared in two volumes, in 1993 and 1999. The National Museum of Australia in Canberra holds a significant collection of memorabilia relating to Robert Menzies, including a range of medals and civil awards received by Sir Robert such as his Jubilee and Coronation medals, Order of Australia, Companion of Honour and US Legion of Merit. There are also a number of special presentation items including a walking stick, cigar boxes, silver gravy boats from the Kooyong electorate and a silver inkstand presented by Queen Elizabeth II.[95] Robert Menzies's personal library of almost 4,000 books is held at the University of Melbourne Library.[96]

• The Forgotten People and Other Studies in Democracy (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1942)
• Speech is of Time: Selected Speeches and Writings (London: Cassell, 1958)
• Afternoon Light: Some Memories of Men and Events (Melbourne: Cassell Australia, 1967)
• Central Power in the Australian Commonwealth: An Examination of the Growth of Commonwealth Power in the Australian Federation (London: Cassell, 1967)
• The Measure of the Years (Melbourne: Cassell Australia, 1970)
• Dark and Hurrying Days: Menzies's 1941 Diary (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1993)
• Letters to My Daughter (Miller's Point: Murdoch Books, 2011)

The Menzies Spire at Jeparit, Victoria. In part, the inscription reads: "The spire symbolises the rise to world recognition of a boy who was born in Jeparit and who rose by his own efforts to become Australia's Prime Minister and a statesman recognised and honoured throughout the world."

• In 1950 Menzies was awarded the Legion of Merit (Chief Commander) by US President Harry S. Truman for "exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services 1941–1944 and December 1949 – July 1950".
• On 1 January 1951 he was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH)[97]
• On 29 August 1952, the University of Sydney conferred the degree of Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) on Menzies.[98] Similarly, He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws by the Universities of Bristol, Belfast, Melbourne, British Columbia, McGill, Montreal, Malta, Laval, Quebec, Tasmania, Cambridge, Harvard, Leeds, Adelaide, Queensland, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Drury and California.[99]
• In 1954, the portrait painting Rt. Hon. R. G. Menzies, PC, CH, QC, MP by Sir Ivor Hele won the Archibald Prize
• On 4 April 1960, a portrait of Menzies by Sir William Dargie was the front cover of Time magazine. This portrait is held by the Art Gallery of New South Wales
• In 1963, Menzies was appointed a Knight of the Order of the Thistle (KT),[100] the order being chosen in recognition of his Scottish heritage. He is the only Australian ever appointed to this order. He was the second of only two Australian prime ministers to be knighted during their term of office (the first prime minister, Edmund Barton, was knighted during his term in 1902).
• On 29 April 1964 Menzies was awarded the honorary degree of a Doctor of Letters (DLitt) by the University of Western Australia.[101] Menzies was also awarded with an Honorary Doctor of Science by the University of New South Wales.[99]
• In 1973 Menzies was awarded Japan's Order of the Rising Sun, Grand Cordon, First Class (other Australian prime ministers to be awarded this honour were Edmund Barton, John McEwen, Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam).[102]
• On 7 June 1976, he was appointed a Knight of the Order of Australia (AK). The category of Knight of the order had been created only on 24 May, and the Chancellor and Principal Knight of the Order, the Governor-General Sir John Kerr, became the first appointee, ex officio. Menzies' was the first appointment made after this.
• In 1984, the Australian Electoral Commission proclaimed at a redistribution on 14 September 1984, the Division of Menzies for representation in the Australian House of Representatives in honour of the former prime minister. The division neighbours Menzies's old division of Kooyong in metropolitan Melbourne, Victoria.
• In 1994, the year of the centenary of Menzies's birth, the Menzies Research Centre was created as an independent public policy think tank associated with the Liberal Party.
• In 2009, during the Australia Day celebrations, the R.G. Menzies Walk was officially opened by the then Governor-General, Quentin Bryce. The walk runs alongside the northern shore of Lake Burley Griffin in Australia's capital, Canberra.[103]
• In 2012, a life-sized bronze statue of Menzies was erected on the R.G. Menzies Walk.[104]
• Sir Robert Menzies Park, in Wahroonga, New South Wales[105]
• Sir Robert Menzies Reserve, in Malvern, Victoria
• The high-rise Menzies building on the Clayton campus of Monash University

Bust of Robert Menzies by sculptor Wallace Anderson located in the Prime Minister's Avenue in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens

• First Menzies Ministry
• Second Menzies Ministry
• Third Menzies Ministry
• Fourth Menzies Ministry
• Fifth Menzies Ministry
• Sixth Menzies Ministry
• Seventh Menzies Ministry
• Eighth Menzies Ministry
• Ninth Menzies Ministry
• Tenth Menzies Ministry

• In the 1984 mini series The Last Bastion, Menzies was portrayed by John Wood.
• In the 1987 mini series Vietnam, he was portrayed by Noel Ferrier.
• In the 1988 mini series True Believers, he was portrayed by John Bonney.
• In the 1996 Egyptian film Nasser 56, he was portrayed by Egyptian actor Hassan Kami.
• In the 2007 film Curtin, he was portrayed by Bille Brown.
• In the 2008 television documentary Menzies and Churchill at War, he was portrayed by Matthew King.
• Max Gillies has caricatured Menzies on stage and in the comedy satire series The Gillies Report.
• In the 2015 documentary The Dalfram Dispute 1938, Menzies was portrayed by Bob Baines[108]
• In 2016 Menzies was portrayed by Alan Dearth in the A Place to Call Home episode "Home to Roost".

• Sir Robert Menzies Memorial Foundation
• Menzies School of Health Research Australia
• R. G. Menzies Building, Australian National University Library
• Menzies Research Centre
• Menzies College (La Trobe University)
• Robert Menzies College (Macquarie University)
• Sir Robert Menzies Building (Monash University, Clayton Campus)
• The Australian federal electoral division of Menzies.[109]
• Menzies Wing (Wesley College, Melbourne)
• Menzies Research Institute
• Menzies Wing (St John's College, University of Sydney)

• Brett, Judith (1992) Robert Menzies's Forgotten People, Macmillan, (a sharply critical psychological study)
• Cook, Ian (1999), Liberalism in Australia, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Victoria, Ch. 7 'Robert Menzies'. ISBN 0-19-553702-5
• Day, David. (1993) Menzies and Churchill at War (Oxford University Press)
• Hazlehurst, Cameron (1979), Menzies Observed, George Allen and Unwin, Sydney, New South Wales. ISBN 0-86861-320-7
• Henderson, Anne. (2014) Menzies at War
• Hughes, Colin A (1976), Mr Prime Minister. Australian Prime Ministers 1901–1972, (Melbourne: Oxford University Press) Chs. 13 and 18. ISBN 0-19-550471-2
• Martin, Allan (1993). Robert Menzies: A Life - 1894–1943. Vol. 1. Melbourne University Press. ISBN 0522844421.
• Martin, Allan (1999). Robert Menzies: A Life - 1944-1978. Vol. 2Martin. Melbourne University Press. ISBN 9780522848649.
• — (May 1996). "Mr Menzies's anticommunism". History. Quadrant. 40 (5): 47–56.
• Martin, Allan (2000), 'Sir Robert Gordon Menzies,' in Grattan, Michelle, "Australian Prime Ministers", New Holland Publishers, pages 174–205. (very good summary of his life and career) ISBN 1-86436-756-3
• Nethercote, J.R., ed. (2016). Menzies: The Shaping of Modern Australia. Connor Court. ISBN 9781925501018.
• Starr, Graeme (1980), The Liberal Party of Australia. A Documentary History, Drummond/Heinemann, Richmond, Victoria. ISBN 0-85859-223-1

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Robert Menzies.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Robert Menzies

• Papers of Robert Menzies, 1905–1978, National Library of Australia, approximately 82.30 m. (588 boxes) + 99 fol. boxes.
• "Robert Menzies". Australia's Prime Ministers. National Archives of Australia. Archived from the original on 24 July 2018. Retrieved 29 June 2010.
• "Robert Menzies". National Museum of Australia. Retrieved 29 June 2010.
• The Menzies Foundation
• The Menzies Virtual Museum
• The Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, London
• The Liberal Party's Robert Menzies website
• Listen to Menzies's declaration of war on australianscreen online
• Menzies's declaration of war was added to the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia registry in 2010
• The Robert Menzies Collection: A Living Library
• Robert Menzies Notebook Collection, The University of Melbourne
• Charcoal Sketch – Menzies Collection
• Newspaper clippings about Robert Menzies in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW