1. Percy Spender served in the House of Representatives from 1937 to 1951, including as a cabinet minister under Robert Menzies and Arthur Fadden.
43 Facts About Percy Spender
1. 2.
Percy Spender was later Ambassador to the United States and a member of the International Court of Justice, including as president of the court from 1964 to 1967.
3.
Percy Spender was the fifth of six children born to Mary and Frank Henry Spender; his father was a locksmith originally from South Australia.
4.
Percy Spender's mother died in 1902 and his father remarried, giving him a stepsister and later two half-siblings.
5.
Percy Spender began his education at Darlinghurst Public School, and later attended Fort Street High School.
6.
Percy Spender eventually passed the entrance exam to the University of Sydney, where he graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1918.
7.
Percy Spender enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in September 1918, but did not see active service before the war ended a few months later.
8.
Percy Spender subsequently completed a Bachelor of Laws, graduating in 1922 with first-class honours and the University Medal in law.
9.
Percy Spender was admitted to the bar in 1923 and made a King's Counsel in 1935.
10.
Percy Spender entered politics at the 1937 election when he was elected to the House of Representatives as member for Warringah.
11.
Percy Spender ran as an "independent UAP" candidate, unexpectedly defeating the sitting member, Sir Archdale Parkhill.
12.
On 20 October 1938, Percy Spender announced that he would join the UAP, but that he would "continue to stand for independent expression of thought and action and against the principle of preselection of candidates".
13.
Percy Spender was promoted to cabinet as a minister without portfolio, but effectively ran the Department of the Treasury in Menzies' stead.
14.
Percy Spender was initially given the title "Minister without portfolio assisting the Treasurer", and then in November 1939 was named Acting Treasurer.
15.
Percy Spender was officially appointed Treasurer a few months later, in March 1940.
16.
Percy Spender was concerned that permanent officials at Treasury, including departmental secretary Stuart McFarlane, were not taking the situation seriously enough.
17.
Percy Spender began to rely more on the advice of temporary staff and independent economists like Lyndhurst Giblin.
18.
Percy Spender promoted interventionist Keynesian policies, such as borrowing money and raising taxes to spend on defence-related projects and thereby reduce unemployment.
19.
Percy Spender wished to control private investing so that capital would be available to the government for defence purposes, introducing requirements for private banks to place a set proportion of deposits with the Commonwealth Bank.
20.
Percy Spender was instead made Minister for the Army, which he would hold until the government's defeat on a confidence motion in October 1941.
21.
Percy Spender "invited Australian generals to communicate directly with him and challenged British reassurances about the defences of Singapore".
22.
Menzies resigned as UAP leader in October 1941, and Percy Spender was an unsuccessful candidate for the leadership.
23.
Percy Spender was eliminated on the first ballot, with Billy Hughes subsequently defeating Allan McDonald by a narrow margin.
24.
Percy Spender was a candidate for the UAP leadership in 1943, when Hughes resigned.
25.
Percy Spender was again eliminated on the first ballot, polling only a handful of votes.
26.
Percy Spender refused to resign from the council, and was expelled from the UAP as a result on 23 February 1944.
27.
Percy Spender sat as an independent after being expelled from the UAP.
28.
Percy Spender was approached to join the Liberal Democratic Party, a small UAP breakaway, but declined.
29.
In May 1945, Percy Spender became a financial member of the Mosman branch of the Liberal Party of Australia.
30.
Percy Spender led Australian delegations to the British Commonwealth Conference in Colombo, Ceylon and to the Fifth Session of the United Nations General Assembly.
31.
At the conference in Colombo, Percy Spender was instrumental in the development of the Colombo Plan.
32.
Percy Spender played a large part in the signing of the ANZUS Pact and the Treaty of San Francisco.
33.
On leaving politics, Percy Spender was appointed Australia's Ambassador to the United States.
34.
However Percy Spender said in 1968 that Menzies only made the ambassador's offer after Percy Spender informed Menzies that he was leaving politics.
35.
Percy Spender married Jean Maud Henderson on 6 April 1925 at St Mary Magdalene Church of England, Coraki, New South Wales.
36.
Percy Spender became a crime-fiction writer and they had two sons.
37.
One son, John Percy Spender, was a politician and diplomat who married Australian fashion designer Carla Zampatti.
38.
Jean Percy Spender died in 1970 and on 4 October 1975 at St Mark's Church of England, Darling Point, he married Averil Watkins Trenerry, nee McLeod.
39.
Percy Spender married Eileen Esdaile, nee Congreve, in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1983.
40.
Percy Spender's granddaughter, Allegra Spender is a member of parliament for Wentworth.
41.
Percy Spender was knighted in 1952 as a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
42.
Percy Spender was conferred the Grande Ufficiale Order of Merit by the Republic of Italy in 1976.
43.
Percy Spender gave the commencement address at Stanford University in 1953.