John Curtin: Australian PM's modest homes

John Curtin (1885–1945) was born in rural Victoria to hard working parents and left school at 13. He became involved in the labour move­ment in Mel­bourne, joined the Labour Party at a young age and then the Vict­or­ian Socialist Party. He became State Secretary of the Timber Wor­kers' Union in 1911, then Federal President in 1914. Curtin was a lead­er of the No Campaign in the 1916 referendum on overseas conscript­ion, and was briefly gaoled for not attending a compulsory military medical examination.     

Curtin lived in a modest Brunswick residence from 1912-15, as Fed­eral President of the Victorian Timber Workers Union. He later bec­ame a leader in the Australian Workers Union. He married in 1917 then moved to Perth to become the editor of the un­ion movement newspaper West­ralian Work­er, and later was State President of the Aus­t­ralian Journ­al­ists' Ass­oc­iation. In 1923, he and wife Elsie built a house in Cottesloe, Perth. [This Cottesloe home was restored by the National Trust much later].

                                           

John Curtin and his wife Elsie built this modest house in 1923.

Cottesloe in Perth

National Trust

After 3 unsuccessful attempts, Curtin was el­ected to Fremantle in the W.A House of Representatives at the 1928 federal election. He remained loy­al to the Labour gov­ernment during the party split of 1931 but lost his seat in Labour's land­slide defeat at the 1931 election. Only in 1934 did Curtin win the seat again and rose up in the Aus­t­ralian Lab­our Par­ty, becoming party leader from 1935.

In 1936 Curtin was elected party lead­er in place of James Scul­lin. The party gained seats at the 1937. In Sept 1939 Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced Australia's entry into WW2 in Europe. The 1940 elections re­sulted in a hung parliament. The ALP eventually formed a minority gov­ernment in Oct 1941, just after the Japanese at­tack on Pearl Harbour oc­curred, so Australia now had to fight Japan as well! Worse still bom­bing raids on northern Australia started! John Curtin, Australia's 14th Prime Minis­t­er, led the nat­ion's war eff­ort and made significant de­cisions about how the war was conduc­t­ed. He placed Australian Pacific forces under the com­mand of the Amer­ican General Douglas MacArthur, with  whom he formed a close relat­ion­ship.   

John Curtin (R) became the prime minister in 1941.

Ben Chifley (L) was elected to the Cabinet as Treasurer

 

    

The Curtins with Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King,

Book of Remembrance in Memorial Chamber, 

Parliament House Ottawa, 1944. Wiki

The ALP won almost two-thirds of the seats in the House of Represent­at­ives at the 1943 election, a party record. In total Curtin was prime minist­er for 4 years, leading Australia through the last years of WW2 un­til his death in 1945. He was long­est serving leader of the Aust­ral­ian Labour Party-ALP from 1935-45, his leadership and interper­s­onal skills being accl­aimed by his polit­ical contemp­or­aries. Curtin died in office in July 1945, after months of war-related ill health. Fortunate­ly many of his post-war reconstruction plans were implemented by his succ­es­sor Ben Chifley.

 
In 2011 the heritage-listed home came up for sale; the vendors bought from a family who'd owned it since 1921. The unrenovated house had heritage demolition restrict­ions, so many of its original period features remained.  

Original facade, built in 1906

Brunswick Melbourne

The Brunswick home where Curtin once lived was bought at auction in 2011 by a family paying $710,000. Since then, the ex PM’s home had a renovation, while keeping many of its original Victorian features eg the original façade, stained glass at the front door, ceil­ing roses, wrought iron lacework and 3.3m ceilings. It now had quite gen­erous rooms wh­ich were more fitting as a form­er Prime Min­ister’s home than his actually home had been. Later the house had a plaque added onto the front, mark­ing its historic signif­ic­ance.  

Blue plaque

   

Now Curtin’s former Brunswick home, Melbourne property with a prime min­ist­erial pedig­ree, will be auctioned again at the end of Mar 2023. The less modest four-bedroom house at Fallon St Brunswick still feat­ur­es a plaque on the footpath outside marking its historical sig­nific­an­ce, and has a price guide of $2.1-2.3 million. I would buy the house in a heart beat, but not just because the historical architecture and déc­or should be heritage-protected forever. Rather I need like to know how many prime ministerial houses can rec­eive a blue plaque; Curtin lived in 1]Creswick and 2]Brunswick in Vic­toria, 3]Cottesloe in W.A and 4]Canberra, and possibly other cities I don’t know about.

renovated Brunswick kitchen

Woodards

renovated alfresco deck
realestate.com.au