Stanley Melbourne Bruce
- 8th Prime Minister - Billy Hughes -James Scullin - 1923 -
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Stanley Melbourne Bruce, 1st Viscount Bruce of Melbourne CH MC FRS PC (15 April
1883–25 August 1967), Australian politician and diplomat, was the eighth Prime
Minister of Australia. He was born in Melbourne, where his father was a
prominent businessman of Scottish descent. He was educated at Glamorgan (now
part of Geelong Grammar School), Melbourne Grammar School, and then at Cambridge
University. After graduation he studied law in London and was called to the bar
in 1907. He practised law in London, and also managed the London office of his
father's importing business. When World War I broke out he joined the British
Army. In 1917 he was severely wounded in France, winning the Military Cross and
the Croix de Guerre.
Bruce was invalided home to Melbourne, and soon became involved in recruiting
campaigns for the Army. His public speaking attracted the attention of the
Nationalist Party, and in 1918 he was elected to the House of Representatives as
MP for Flinders, near Melbourne. His background in business led to his being
appointed Treasurer (finance minister) in 1921. When the Nationalist Party lost
its majority at the 1922 election, the Country Party demanded that Prime
Minister Billy Hughes resign as the price of joining a coalition government, and
Bruce found himself Prime Minister at the age of only 39.
Bruce's appointment marked an important turning point in Australian political
history. He was the first Prime Minister who had not been involved in the
movement for federation, had not been a member of a colonial Parliament, and had
not been a member of the original 1901 federal Parliament. With his aristocratic
manners and dress - he drove a Rolls Royce and wore white spats - he was the
first genuinely "Tory" Australian Prime Minister.
He formed an effective partnership with the Country Party leader, Dr Earle Page,
and exploited public fears of communism and militant trade unions to dominate
Australian politics through the 1920s. Despite predictions that Australians
would not accept such an aloof leader, he won a smashing victory over a
demoralised Labor Party at the 1925 election. He pursued a policy of vigorous
national development and, in foreign affairs, support for the British Empire and
the League of Nations.
The Bruce-Page government won another term in 1928, but in 1929 Bruce,
frustrated by a series of bitter industrial disputes, introduced legislation to
dismantle the federal system of industrial arbitration. Hughes led a group of
backbenchers who voted against the bill and brought the government down. At the
subsequent election Labor won a landslide victory and Bruce lost his own seat -
the only Australian Prime Minister to suffer such a fate.
In 1931 Bruce won his seat back and became a Minister without Portfolio in the
government of Joseph Lyons. But Lyons wanted Bruce out of politics and in 1933
he was dispatched to London as High Commissioner. This post he held with great
distinction for 12 years, playing a notable role in the Abdication Crisis
triggered by Edward VIII, and representing Australia's interests in London
during World War II. He was appointed a member of the Imperial War Cabinet and
the Pacific War Cabinet. In 1947 he was created Viscount Bruce of Melbourne, of
Westminster Gardens in the City of Westminster.
Bruce divided the rest of his life between London and Melbourne. He represented
Australia on various United Nations bodies and sat on the boards of many
companies. He died in London on 25 August 1967.
"Bruce was an aloof man with a strong sense of his own dignity. He could
unbend but not very far. A note sent to the press on his appointment as PM read:
Mr Bruce would be very glad if the newspapers would not refer to him by his
Christian name as Mr Stanley Bruce, but always as Mr S.M.Bruce. Nobody called
him 'Stan'. "
Cecil Edwards, "Bruce of Melbourne", Heineman 1965, p.82
"Something of an exquisite; the most highly veneered politician we have yet
produced. He wears immaculate clothes, has the stunning profile and the air of a
'Lady's Journal' hero. Mrs B is among Toorak's most tastefully dressed matrons.
Her mother was a Manifold. There are no little B's, but a well-manicured fox
terrier does his best to keep the pair from feeling lonely."
The Bulletin, quoted in Cecil Edwards, "Bruce of Melbourne",
Heineman 1965, p.82