THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT ALSO TO LOOK AT KIP FENN, A MAJOR NOVEL ABOUT THE 21st CENTURY
- freely available on this site
Menzies, Robert ___ 1894-1978 ___ Australian
___ politician
BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
One of five children, Menzies was
born in Jeparit, Victoria, in a back room of his father's grocery store
in 1894. While his father became a member of the Victoria Parliament, he
also had an uncle who became a member of the federal House of Representatives.
Menzies studied at Grenville and Wesley Colleges, then then did law at Melbourne
University. In 1928, he was appointed to Parliament but resigned, in a protest
against rural employment subsidies, and returned to the law. In 1932, he
joined the United Australia Party (UAP) and when it won the Victoria state
election, he took several political offices. In 1934, he won the federal
seat of Kooyong and became deputy leader of the UAP. After the death of
the serving Prime Minister (Joseph Lyons), Menzies succeeded Earl Page who
had been appointed caretaker Prime Minister. When Britain declared War on
Germany in 1939, he mobilised Australian troops to help. But then, the year
after winning an election in 1940, he was forced to resign as leader of
the party and Prime Minister. Menzies made a comeback in 1944 with a new
Liberal Party which went on to win a general election in 1949. Menzies then
remained as Prime Minister until 1966, winning a record seven consecutive
elections. During his time in power, Menzies presided over rapid industrial
expansion, improved foreign policy links with the US, Japan and nations
in Southeast Asia, the building of eight universities, and the development
of Canberra as the nation's capital. He was knighted in 1963. In 1993, the
National Library of Australia published the diary he kept during a wartime
visit to England in 1941.
One
biography link
DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1941 ___ military political historyeye
WEB TEXT LINKS
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
National
Library of Australia
SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Dark and Hurrying Days: Menzies'
1941 Diary
May 2005
THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
Please
email if you have any corrections, additions or comments. |
IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS:
1) The first line of basic information
may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different
names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or
uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown,
or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British'
a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was
compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts
were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if
they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates
and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with
caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are
only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies.
4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges,
and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising.
I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some
variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited
myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their
original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the
titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries. |