Person

Menzies, Robert Gordon (1894 - 1978)

AK KTH CH FAA FRS

Born
20 December 1894
Jeparit, Victoria, Australia
Died
15 May 1978
Malvern, Victoria, Australia
Occupation
Barrister and Prime Minister of Australia

Summary

Robert Menzies was Prime Minister of Australia from 1939 to 1941 and from 1949 to 1966. During his time in office he contributed greatly to the expansion of Australia's scientific community and scientific research. One of his main achievements was the massive expansion of the CSIRO. Menzies was appointed Prime Minister for the second time just after the legislation was passed to change the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) into the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation). He and his government oversaw the CSIRO budget rise from $4.0 million in 1948/49 to nearly $41.0 million in 1965/66. His other contributions include being instrumental in the development and funding of the Australian Academy of Science; the amalgamation of the Canberra University College with the Australian National University; and the partial funding of the Anglo-Australian Telescope in Parkes, New South Wales.

Skip to

Details

Chronology

1916
Education - Bachelor of Law (LLB), University of Melbourne
1918
Career position - Admitted to the Bar
1918
Education - Master of Laws (LLM), University of Melbourne
1928 - 1929
Career position - Member of the Legislative Council for East Yarra, Victoria
1929
Career position - King's Council (KC)
1929 - 1934
Career position - Member of the Legislative Assembly for Nunawading, Victoria
1934 - 1946
Career position - Member of the House of Representatives for Kooyong, Victoria
1937
Career position - Privy Councillor
1939 - 1941
Career position - Prime Minister of Australia
1941 - 1944
Career position - Member of the Advisory War Council
1943
Award - Doctor of Laws (LLD), honoris causa, University of Melbourne
1943 - 1949
Career position - Leader of the Federal Opposition
1949 - 1966
Career position - Prime Minister of Australia
1950
Career position - Chief Commander, Legion of Merit (US)
1951
Award - Companion of Honour (CH) - Prime Minister of Australia from 1949 to 1966
1958 -
Award - Fellow, Australian Academy of Science (FAA)
1960 - 1962
Career position - Minister for External Affairs
1963
Award - The Order of the Thistle - Knight (KTH) - Prime Minister of Australia
1965
Award - Fellow, The Royal Society, London (FRS)
1976
Award - Knight of the Order of Australia (AK) - For extraordinary and pre-eminent achievement and merit in the field of government

Related Corporate Bodies

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

Book Sections

Journal Articles

  • Flesch, Juliet and McPhee, Peter, '150 Years, 150 Stories: Robert Gordon Menzies', Uni News, 12 (13) (2003), 4. Details
  • Menzies, R. G., 'A few thoughts about engineers.', Journal of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, 11 (12) (1939), 442-444. Details
  • White, F. W.G., 'Robert Gordon Menzies (1894-1978)', Historical Records of Australian Science, 5 (1) (1980), 68-102. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR9800510068. Details
  • White, Frederick William George, 'Robert Gordon Menzies, 20 December 1894 - 15 May 1978', Biographical memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 25 (1979), 445-76. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbm.1979.0016. Details

Resources

Resource Sections

See also

Digital resources

Title
Robert Gordon Menzies
Type
Image

Details

McCarthy, G.J and Annette Alafaci

Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 21 June 2022

EOAS ID: biogs/P001273b.htm

Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
What do we mean by this?

Published by Swinburne University of Technology.
This Edition: 2024 November (Ballambar - Gariwerd calendar - early summer - season of butterflies)
Reference: http://www.bom.gov.au/iwk/calendars/gariwerd.shtml#ballambar
For earlier editions see the Internet Archive at: https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.eoas.info

The Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation uses the Online Heritage Resource Manager (OHRM), a relational data curation and web publication system developed by the eScholarship Research Centre and its predecessors at the University of Melbourne 1999-2020. The OHRM has been maintained by Gavan McCarthy since 2020.

Cite this page: https://www.eoas.info/biogs/P001273b.htm

"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260