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Prime Minister, 19 December 1967 to 10 January 1968
Australian Country Party
John McEwen (1900-1980) became Australia’s 18th Prime Minister after Harold Holt’s disappearance.1 Like the two other Country Party Prime Ministers before him,2 his term was brief. However, he spent more than 36 years in Parliament and remains one of Australia’s most influential politicians, serving over 15 years as Minister for Trade and almost 13 as Deputy Prime Minister.
McEwen was born in Victoria and raised by his grandmother following his parents’ deaths. At 15 he joined the Crown Solicitor’s office under Frederick Whitlam,3 before enlisting in the army. After the war McEwen began farming under the Soldier Settlement Scheme.4 He became active in politics, joining the Victorian Farmers’ Union and becoming chair of the Stanhope Dairy Cooperative. In 1921 he married Annie McLeod; they had no children.5 After her death in 1967, he married Mary Byrne.
In 1934 McEwen won the federal seat of Echuca for the Country Party, the first of 14 consecutive victories spanning three electorates. A ‘devastating parliamentary performer’,6 he became known as ‘Black Jack’ due to his formidable persona. McEwen joined Prime Minister Joe Lyons’s front bench as Minister for the Interior (1937–39), and was Minister for External Affairs (1940) and Air and Civil Aviation (1940–41) in the Menzies Government,7 serving on the War Cabinet and Advisory War Council. Appointed the Country Party’s deputy leader in 1943, he became leader (and Deputy Prime Minister) when Fadden retired in 1958, and often served as acting Prime Minister.
McEwen took on the commerce and agriculture portfolios in 1949, but is most remembered for his achievements as Minister for Trade. From 1956 to 1971 (with the industry portfolio added in 1963) he ‘transformed trade policy from its crudeness in the immediate post-war years to its diversity and relative sophistication in the early 1970s’.8 McEwen was a key negotiator in bi- and multi-lateral trade agreements (including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), championed domestic industry, and expanded exports into Japan, China, eastern Europe, and the USA.
Commissioned as caretaker Prime Minister in December 1967, McEwen was influential regarding Holt’s replacement. His refusal to serve under Billy McMahon paved the way
for John Gorton to become Prime Minister. McEwen was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1953, CH in 1969 and GCMG in 1971. The Japanese Government appointed him to the Order of the Rising Sun in 1973, the third Prime Minister to receive this honour.9 Upon McEwen’s death in 1980, Country Party leader Doug Anthony declared:
‘[w]hen I succeeded him ... I found that everywhere I went in the world the name McEwen was respected, trusted and admired. He formulated the policies and led the battle to change attitudes so that Australia could become an even greater trading and industrialised nation’.10
William Alexander Dargie
Artist and teacher William Dargie (1912-2003) is best known for his contribution to Australian portraiture. A prolific portraitist and eight-time winner of the Archibald Prize, Dargie was inspired by the Heidelberg School of impressionist artists. In 1941, while teaching art at Swinburne Technical College in Melbourne, Dargie was appointed an official war artist for the Australian Army. He worked for five years recording the aftermath of battles across the Middle East, India, Burma and New Guinea. After the war, Dargie built a distinguished career as a leading portrait artist, taking on several commissioned portraits of eminent figures, including the HMC portraits of Her Majesty The Queen, Dame Enid Lyons and Prime Minister John McEwen. He simultaneously held several administrative positions, serving on the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board for 20 years and heading up the National Gallery of Victoria Art School and the National Gallery of Victoria. In 2002, to mark his 90th birthday, the Australian War Memorial, Parliament House and the National Portrait Gallery held exhibitions to pay tribute to his contribution to Australian art. His work is represented in national and state galleries and other public institutions across Australia.11
John McEwen
by William Alexander Dargie
1969
Oil on canvas
115.9 x 90.3 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection
References
1. Information in this biography has been taken from the following: C Lloyd, ‘McEwen, Sir John (1900–1980)’ Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 2000; ‘Australia’s Prime Ministers: John McEwen’, National Archives of Australia; ‘Prime Ministers of Australia: John McEwen’, National Museum of Australia; ‘Australian Prime Ministers: John McEwen’, Museum of Australian Democracy. Websites accessed 9 August 2021.
2. Earle Page and Arthur Fadden.
3. C Hazlehurst, ‘Whitlam, Harry Frederick (Fred) (1884–1961)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 2002, accessed 9 August 2021.
4.‘Solder Settlement’, National Museum of Australia, accessed 9 August 2021.
5. 'John McEwen’s partner: Ann McEwen’, National Archives of Australia, accessed 9 August 2021.
6. ‘John McEwen’s partner: Ann McEwen’, Museum of Australian Democracy.
7. This followed the reshuffle resulting from the deaths of 10 people, including three cabinet ministers (Geoffrey Street, James Fairbairn, and Sir Henry Gullett), and the Chief of the General Staff (Sir Cyril Brudenell Bingham White), in an air crash near Canberra in 1940. See ‘‘Canberra Air Disaster, 1940’, Fact Sheet 142, National Archives of Australia, accessed 11 August 2022.
8. Lloyd, op. cit.
9. The other Prime Minister recipients were Edmund Barton and Robert Menzies.
10. J Anthony, ‘Death of Sir John McEwen’, House of Representatives, Debates, 25 November 1980, p. 29; Tim Hughes, ‘Anthony, John Douglas (Doug) (1929–2020)’, Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, accessed 9 August 2021
11. Information in this biography has been taken from the following: M Keaney, ‘Sir William Dargie CBE’, Portrait 9, September–November 2003, National Portrait Gallery; ‘Sir William Dargie: A Ninetieth Birthday Tribute’, National Portrait Gallery; ‘Captain William Dargie’, Australian War Memorial. ‘Dargie, (Sir) William Alexander’, A McCulloch, S McCulloch and E McCulloch Childs, eds, The New McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Aus Art Editions in association with The Miegunyah Press, 2006, p. 366. Websites accessed 25 March 2021.