1. Jo Gullett served with distinction in the Australian Army during World War II, was a controversial Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives for the Division of Henty, from 1946 to 1955.
20 Facts About Jo Gullett
1. 2.
Jo Gullett served as the Australian Ambassador to Greece from 1965 to 1968, during 'the time of the Colonels'.
3.
Jo Gullett was the son of former Cabinet Minister Sir Henry Somer Gullett, the grandson of author Barbara Baynton and an uncle of actor Penne Hackforth-Jones.
4.
Jo Gullett is the author of two memoirs, one of which, Not as a Duty Only: an Infantryman's War is widely considered to be a classic in Australian war writing.
5.
Jo Gullett was born in Britain to Australian-born parents Henry Gullett and his wife Elizabeth Penelope nee Frater.
6.
Jo Gullett's father was working in London at the time as a journalist.
7.
Jo Gullett was educated at Melbourne Grammar School till 1929 when the family, which by now included a daughter, moved to Canberra.
8.
Jo Gullett spent some of his early childhood in Canberra, at Hill Station in what is the industrial suburb of Hume.
9.
Jo Gullett enlisted in the Army upon the outbreak of war in 1939, as a private.
10.
Jo Gullett is the central character in an Ivor Hele painting of the battle which has hung in the Australian War Memorial since the 1960s.
11.
Jo Gullett married Ruth Mary Colman in Melbourne in 1945 and the couple had 4 children.
12.
Jo Gullett first stood for parliament, while still in uniform, in 1943, for his father's old seat of Henty, but was unsuccessful.
13.
Jo Gullett was a fierce anti-communist, and in the early 1950s was a spearhead of Parliamentary moves against Communists and Communist sympathisers within the Public Service and the wider community.
14.
Jo Gullett's attacks are considered by some to have descended to the level of smear.
15.
Jo Gullett held a strong anti-immigration stance and made public comments, in the press and on the floor of Parliament, that would now be considered as anti-semitism.
16.
Jo Gullett is often mentioned as one of the younger men of ability who were too long denied promotion to cabinet or outer-cabinet positions.
17.
Jo Gullett retired from the Parliament on 4 November 1955 and returned to journalism.
18.
Jo Gullett is featured in the Memorial's Fifty Australians exhibition.
19.
Jo Gullett was the author of two volumes of memoirs, Not As a Duty Only, which covered his war service, and Good Company: Horseman, Soldier, Politician, which is a more complete autobiography.
20.
Ruth Mary Jo Gullett died in Griffith on 6 April 1995, aged 73.