88 Facts About John Curtin

John Curtin was an Australian politician who served as the 14th prime minister of Australia, from 1941 until his death in 1945, holding office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party.

John Curtin is most notable for having led the country for the majority of World War II, including all but the last few weeks of the war in the Pacific.

John Curtin is frequently ranked as one of Australia's greatest prime ministers.

John Curtin left school at the age of 13 and became involved in the labour movement in Melbourne.

John Curtin joined the Labor Party at a young age and was involved with the Victorian Socialist Party.

John Curtin became state secretary of the Timberworkers' Union in 1911 and federal president in 1914.

John Curtin was a leader of the "No" campaign during the 1916 referendum on overseas conscription, and was briefly jailed for refusing to attend a compulsory medical examination.

John Curtin moved to Perth the following year to become the editor of the Westralian Worker, and later was state president of the Australian Journalists' Association.

John Curtin is the only prime minister to represent a constituency in Western Australia.

John Curtin remained loyal to the Labor government during the party split of 1931.

John Curtin lost his seat in Labor's landslide defeat at the 1931 election, but won it back in 1934.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor occurred two months after John Curtin became prime minister, and Australia entered the war against Japan.

John Curtin led the nation's war effort and made significant decisions about how the war was conducted.

John Curtin placed Australian forces under the command of the American general Douglas MacArthur, with whom he formed a close relationship, and successfully negotiated the issue of overseas conscription that had split his party during World War I The ALP won almost two-thirds of the seats in the House of Representatives at the 1943 election, which remains a party record.

John Curtin died in office in July 1945, after months of ill health attributed to the stresses of the war.

John Curtin was born in Creswick, Victoria, on 8 January 1885.

John Curtin was christened "John Joseph Ambrose", although his middle names were not recorded on his birth certificate and he stopped using them in later life.

John Curtin's parents were both born in County Cork, Ireland.

John Curtin's brothers settled in Adelaide, but he moved on to Victoria and found work as a warder at Pentridge Prison.

John Curtin later joined the Victoria Police, where in thirteen years he never rose above the rank of a constable; he received reprimands for indecent assault and using excessive force against children.

John Curtin was the sister of one of his police colleagues.

John Curtin was born with congenital strabismus of the left eye, which remained noticeable throughout his life.

John Curtin lived in Creswick until 1890, when his father retired from the police.

John Curtin's father suffered from chronic rheumatoid arthritis and syphilis, and was assessed as medically unable to resume his police duties.

John Curtin was offered a choice between an annual pension and a lump-sum pay-out, and opted for the latter.

John Curtin subsequently moved his family to inner Melbourne, taking over the lease of a pub on Little Lonsdale Street and moving into rented accommodation in Brunswick.

John Curtin began his education at St Francis' Boys School, a Christian Brothers school attached to St Francis' Church.

John Curtin's father had failed to prosper in Melbourne, which was in the middle of an economic downturn.

John Curtin was enrolled in the local state school, as a Catholic school had not yet been established.

John Curtin excelled academically, and was seen as a potential "scholarship boy".

John Curtin attended the local state schools, ending his formal education in 1898 at the age of 13.

In early 1899, John Curtin began working as an office boy at a weekly magazine called The Rambler, earning five shillings per week.

John Curtin's employer was the artist and writer Norman Lindsay, who had grown up in Creswick and knew his family.

The magazine did not last long, and over the following years John Curtin held down a series of short-term jobs, including as a copy boy at The Age, a potter's apprentice, and a houseboy at a gentlemen's club.

John Curtin did not secure a permanent job until he was 18, taking up a position as an estimates clerk with the Titan Manufacturing Company in South Melbourne in September 1903.

John Curtin played cricket for the Brunswick Cricket Club, where he had a reputation as a solid batsman.

John Curtin remained involved in both sports throughout the remainder of his life, as an administrator and supporter.

John Curtin was said to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of cricket statistics.

From a young age, John Curtin was active in both the Australian Labor Party and the Victorian Socialist Party, which was a Marxist organisation.

From 1911 until 1915, John Curtin was employed as state secretary of the Timberworkers' Union.

John Curtin was elected federal president of the union in 1914.

John Curtin stood as the Labor candidate for Balaclava in the 1914 federal election.

John Curtin proposed to Elsie Needham, the sister of Labor Senator Ted Needham, on St Kilda Beach, and they were married on 21 April 1917 in the dining room of a private home in West Leederville.

John Curtin moved to Perth, Western Australia, in 1917 to become an editor for the Westralian Worker, the official trade union newspaper.

John Curtin settled in the suburb of Cottesloe where his residence is heritage-listed as "John Curtin's House".

John Curtin enjoyed the less pressured life of Western Australia and his political views gradually moderated.

John Curtin joined the Australian Journalists' Association in 1917 and was elected its Western Australian President in 1920.

John Curtin wore his AJA badge every day he was prime minister.

In 1927, the Federal Government convened a Royal Commission on Child Endowment, and John Curtin was appointed as a member of that commission.

John Curtin stood for Parliament a second time in 1925, this time for Fremantle, although he lost heavily to the incumbent William Watson.

Watson retired in 1928, and John Curtin ran again, this time winning on the second count.

John Curtin stood for his old seat in 1934 after Watson announced his retirement for the second time, and was able to win it back.

In 1935, when Scullin resigned as Labor Leader, John Curtin stood in the election to replace him, although he was not expected to win.

John Curtin's opponent was Frank Forde, the deputy leader of the party since 1931 who had been closely associated with the economic policies of the Scullin government.

The groups that had supported John Curtin did so on the basis that he promise to give up alcohol, which he subsequently did.

John Curtin led Labor to a five-seat swing in the 1940 election, which resulted in a hung parliament.

John Curtin adroitly refused calls from his own caucus to bring about the defeat of the government through a motion of no confidence.

John Curtin had refused Menzies' initial offer to form a wartime "national government", partly because he feared that it would split the Labor Party, although he did agree to join the Advisory War Council.

John Curtin summoned Coles and Wilson and made them promise that if he named Curtin prime minister, they would support him for the remainder of the Parliament to end the instability in government.

John Curtin became the first and only prime minister to come from Western Australia.

John Curtin made crucial decisions linking Australia to the United States.

Many felt that Prime Minister John Curtin was abandoning Australia's traditional ties to the British Isles without any solid partnership in place with the United States.

John Curtin saw the United States as a predatory economic and military power that would threaten Australia's own ambitions in the Pacific.

Concurrently, the John Curtin government enacted the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942, under which Australia accepted the dominion status which Britain had conferred in 1930, but which the Australian federal government had not accepted until then.

John Curtin prevailed, although he agreed that the main body of the 6th Division could garrison Ceylon.

John Curtin formed a close working relationship with the Allied Supreme Commander in the South West Pacific Area, General Douglas MacArthur.

John Curtin realised that Australia would be ignored unless it had a strong voice in Washington, DC, and he wanted that voice to be MacArthur's.

John Curtin gave over control of Australian forces to MacArthur, directing Australian commanders to treat MacArthur's orders as if they came from the Australian Government.

John Curtin seized the chance to share authority with MacArthur, refused to offend his vanity, drew him as close as he could.

John Curtin had previously opposed conscription for overseas service during World War I, and again in 1940 when it was introduced by Menzies, although he had supported softening it to allow conscripts to serve in Australian territories.

John Curtin recognised that the restriction of the Australian conscripts to Australia and its territories was morally indefensible and politically unviable.

John Curtin had suffered all of his life from stress-related illnesses, and depression; he was a heavy smoker.

John Curtin made very heavy use of newspapers and broadcast media, especially through press conferences, speeches, and newsreels.

In terms of social policy, the John Curtin government enacted a wide range of progressive social reforms during its time in office.

In 1945, John Curtin ordered the preparation of the White Paper on Full Employment in Australia.

John Curtin went into the 1943 election in a very strong position.

John Curtin had a heart attack in November 1944, and did not return to work until January 1945.

At 4:00am on 5 July 1945, as Australia's 7th Division began its last operation against Japanese forces in the Battle of Balikpapan, John Curtin died at The Lodge.

The next day, John Curtin's body was laid in state at the King's Hall in Parliament House, where a memorial service was held, conducted by his friend, the Presbyterian minister Hector Harrison.

John Curtin's body was returned to Perth on a RAAF Dakota escorted by a flight of nine fighter aircraft.

John Curtin was initially succeeded as prime minister by his deputy, Frank Forde; seven days later a party ballot installed Ben Chifley as Labor Leader and therefore prime minister.

John Curtin was introduced to Elsie Needham on a visit to Tasmania in April 1912.

John Curtin proposed to her in Melbourne in 1915, and they were married in Perth on 21 April 1917.

John Curtin had an ambivalent relationship with religion and has been described as agnostic.

John Curtin had refused to so much as set foot inside a Catholic church throughout his adult life, not even to attend the weddings of friends.

John Curtin is credited with leading the Labor Party to its best federal election success in history, with a record 55.1 percent of the primary half-senate vote, winning all seats, and a two party preferred lower house estimate of 58.2 percent at the 1943 election, winning two-thirds of seats.

One legacy of John Curtin was the significant expansion of social services under his leadership.

In 1975 John Curtin was honoured on a postage stamp bearing his portrait issued by Australia Post.