A mounted portrait photograph of Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, eventually Australia's longest-serving Prime Minister, delivering Australia's Second World War declaration of war broadcast on 3 September 1939, signed and dated by Menzies in 1939.
1939. Photograph. This is an original signed and dated portrait photograph of the man who would become Australia’s longest-serving Prime Minister taken on the occasion of his 3 September 1939 declaration of war broadcast announcing Australia’s entry into the Second World War in support of Great Britain. The 8 x 6 inches photograph is on a 9 x 6.3125 inches original mount. Menzies signed “Robert G Menzies 1939.” on the mount just below the bottom right corner of the photograph.
Condition is very good minus. The photograph is complete with no appreciable wear, but nonetheless shows some silvering, manifest when viewed at an oblique angle. The mount was a bit unevenly trimmed on the right side, but is notionally complete thus, evidenced by the fact that Menzies's dated signature at the lower right remains intact. The mount is very slightly curved and shows some spotting. Some scarring to the verso indicates that the mount may have once been affixed. The National Library of Australia attributes this photograph to Stan H. Ravenscroft.
On 3 September 1939 Britain declared war on Germany, formally entering what would become a defining conflict not just for Britain, but for the world. That same day Prime Minister of Australia Robert Gordon Menzies (1894-1978), who had been Prime Minister only since April 1939, announced to his people that Australia was consequently also at war with Germany. Menzies’s broadcast was delivered at 9:30 pm from the Postmaster-General's Room at the Commonwealth Offices in Melbourne.
While Britain’s primary concern was Nazi Germany, Menzies was justifiably concerned about the proximate threat Japan posed to his own sparsely populated, poorly defended nation. Against a backdrop of political factionalism and war anxiety at home, Menzies left Australia on 24 January 1941 in a Qantas Empire Flying Boat. “In an extraordinary journey, hopping his way across the top end to Indonesia, Singapore, Rangoon, Calcutta, Karachi, Bahrain, and Basra, to Palestine and thence to Egypt and Libya, after which he had a long flight across the Sahara and southern Africa, then north to Lisbon, Menzies and his team arrived in England on 20 February.”
Menzies was ultimately absent from Australia for four months, seeking trade deals, material support, and strategic attention to Australia’s peril in the decidedly secondary Pacific Theater of the war. “Nothing worked. And as he stayed in Britain, Menzies diarised how his emotions and regard for Churchill swayed from admiration to annoyance. For all his efforts, Churchill did not understand the situation at Singapore or the danger for Britain’s dominions in the Pacific.”
Menzies returned home to heightened war anxieties and further erosion of his tenuous political position. He resigned his premiership in August 1941. His administration had committed Australian troops to fight with Britain and set up a war administration, but this would end his role in the war, both in Australia and in Imperial councils, given the voluble dissent he had given Churchill in the War Cabinet while in London.
Despite this short and rocky initial tenure as leader of Australia, Menzies would eventually become Australia’s longest-serving Prime Minister. He held the position for a combined total of over 18 years across two non-consecutive periods: from 1939 to 1941, and again from 1949 to 1966.
References: National Library of Australia; ICS, Henderson, FH 168, Spring 2015). Item #008908
Price: $450.00