John McEwen

Early life

McEwen was born at Chiltern, Victoria to David James McEwen, a pharmacist from Ireland, and his second wife, Amy Ellen (née Porter; died 1901). His father died in 1907 and consequently McEwen was raised by his grandmother with her sister. He was educated at state schools, but left at the age of 13 to support his family, becoming a junior public service clerk. He enlisted in the Army immediately upon turning 18 but the First World War ended while he was still in training. He commenced dairy farming at Tongala (Victoria), near Shepparton, and then changed to sheep and cattle farming in nearby Stanhope.

Early years

McEwen was active in farmer organisations and in the Country Party. In 1934 he was elected to the House of Representatives for the electorate of Echuca. That seat was abolished in 1937, and McEwen followed most of his constituents into Indi. He changed seats again in 1949, when Murray was carved out of the northwestern portion of Indi and McEwen transferred there. Between 1937 and 1941 he was successively Minister for the Interior, Minister for External Affairs and (simultaneously) Minister for Air and Minister for Civil Aviation. In 1940, when Archie Cameron resigned as Country Party leader, McEwen contested the leadership ballot against Sir Earle Page: the ballot was tied and Arthur Fadden was chosen as a compromise. McEwen became his deputy.

Menzies and Holt Governments

When the conservatives returned to office in 1949 under Robert Menzies after eight years in opposition, McEwen became Minister for Commerce and Agriculture, switching to Minister for Trade and Industry in 1956. Menzies nicknamed him "Black Jack", due to his dark eyebrows, grim nature, and occasional temper. In the Menzies Government, McEwen pursued what became known as "McEwenism" – a policy of high tariff protection for the manufacturing industry, so that industry would not challenge the continuing high tariffs on imported raw materials, which benefitted farmers but pushed up industry's costs. This policy was a part (some argue the foundation) of what became known as the "Australian Settlement" which promoted high wages, industrial development, government intervention in industry (both as an owner- Australian governments traditionally owned banks and insurance companies and the railways and through policies designed to assist particular industries) and decentralisation. In 1958 Fadden retired and McEwen succeeded him as Country Party leader, and hence the de facto number-two man in the government. Menzies retired in 1966, handing the Prime Ministership to Harold Holt. McEwen became the longest-serving figure in the government, with an effective veto over government policy.

Prime Minister

Harold Holt disappeared while swimming at Portsea, Victoria, on 17 December 1967, and was officially presumed dead two days later. Lord Casey, the Governor-General of Australia, sent for McEwen and he was sworn in as Prime Minister, on the understanding that his commission would continue only so long as it took for the Liberals to elect a new leader. McEwen contended that if Casey commissioned a Liberal as interim Prime Minister, it would give that person an undue advantage in the upcoming ballot for a full-time leader.

McEwen retained all of Holt's ministers, and had them sworn in as the McEwen Ministry. Approaching 68, McEwen was the oldest person ever to be appointed Prime Minister of Australia, although not the oldest to serve; Menzies left office one month and six days after his 71st birthday. McEwen had been encouraged to remain Prime Minister on a more permanent basis but to do so would have required him to defect to the Liberals, an option he had never contemplated.

It had long been presumed that the Treasurer and Liberal deputy leader, William McMahon, would succeed Holt as Liberal leader. However, McEwen sparked a leadership crisis when he announced that he and his Country Party colleagues would not serve under McMahon. McEwen is reported to have despised McMahon personally. But more importantly, McEwen was bitterly opposed to McMahon on political grounds, because McMahon was allied with free trade advocates in the conservative parties and favoured sweeping tariff reforms, a position that was vehemently opposed by McEwen, his Country Party colleagues and their rural constituents.

Another key factor in McEwen's antipathy towards McMahon was hinted at soon after the crisis by the veteran political journalist Alan Reid. According to Reid, McEwen was aware that McMahon was habitually breaching Cabinet confidentiality and regularly leaking information to favoured journalists and lobbyists, including Maxwell Newton, who had been hired as a "consultant" by Japanese trade interests.

McEwen's opposition forced McMahon to withdraw from the leadership ballot and opened the way for the successful campaign to promote the Minister for Education and Science, Senator John Gorton, to the Prime Ministership with the support of a group led by Defence Minister Malcolm Fraser. Gorton replaced McEwen as Prime Minister on 10 January 1968. It was the second time the Country Party had effectively vetoed its senior partner's choice for the leadership; in 1923 Earle Page had demanded that the Nationalist Party, one of the forerunners of the Liberals, remove Billy Hughes as leader before he would even consider coalition talks.

Later years

Gorton created the formal title Deputy Prime Minister for McEwen, confirming his status as the second-ranking member of the government. Prior to then, the title had been used informally for whoever was recognised as the second-ranking member of the government--the leader of the Country Party when the Coalition was in government, and Labor's deputy leader when Labor was in government.

McEwen retired from politics in 1971. His successor, Doug Anthony, said that McEwen's previous objections to McMahon no longer held, finally freeing the Liberals to replace Gorton with McMahon within two months. At the time of his resignation, McEwen had served 36 years and 5 months, including 34 years as either a minister or opposition frontbencher. He was the last serving parliamentarian from the Great Depression era, and hence the last parliamentary survivor of the Lyons government. By the time of his death, Malcolm Fraser's government was abandoning McEwenite trade policies.

Honours

McEwen was awarded the Companion of Honour (CH) in 1969. He was knighted in 1971 after his retirement from politics, becoming a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG). The Japanese government conferred on him the Grand Cordon, Order of the Rising Sun in 1973.

Personal life

On 21 September 1921 he married Anne Mills McLeod, known as Annie; they had no children. In 1966, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). After a long illness Dame Anne McEwen died on 10 February 1967.

At the time of becoming Prime Minister in December of that year, McEwen was a widower, being the first Australian Prime Minister unmarried during his term of office. (The next such case was Julia Gillard, Prime Minister 2010–13, who had a domestic partner although unwed.)

On 26 July 1968, McEwen married Mary Eileen Byrne, his personal secretary; he was aged 68, she was 46. In retirement he distanced himself from politics, undertook some consulting work, and travelled to Japan and South Africa. He had no children by any of his marriages.

McEwen suffered dermatitis all his life and committed suicide by starving himself to death on 20 November 1980, at the age of 80. He was cremated. His estate was sworn for probate at $2,180,479. He was also receiving a small pension from the Department of Social Security at the time of his death.