Minister for Health, 1923-1942

Component identifier:

Series 37

Content Summary:

In a Cabinet reshuffle following the September 1934 election Lyons appointed Hughes Minister for Health and Minister for Repatriation. Apart from some congratulatory letters which are in Series 3, all of the papers on the former portfolio in the collection are in Series 37. They consist of letters, telegrams, memoranda and copies of cables, notes for speeches and broadcasts, some Cabinet papers, transcripts of meetings with deputations, newscuttings, printed material, and Letters Patent.

There are numerous letters and minutes from the Director-General of Health, Dr H. L. C. Cumpston, and other letters from Dr A. Watson Munroe, Roland Wilson, the Registered Nurses Association, the Tasmanian Women's Association, the Australian Mothercraft Society, and State Premiers writing in response to Hughes' request for information on State welfare schemes. The notes of deputations record Hughes' meetings with groups such as the Health Defence Association, and the Queensland Ambulance Transport Brigade, and are concerned with such diverse subjects as the establishment of a Medical Research Council and the importation of horses from India.

The series as a whole concentrates on Hughes' concern at Australia's high infant and maternal mortality and morbidity rates, and his campaign to raise money for the King George and Queen Mary Jubilee Memorial Fund. Other subjects covered include the Canberra Hospital, the Food for Babies Fund, the Stewart House Preventorium Fund, physical fitness, milk for schools, medical research, heart disease, malnutrition, tuberculosis, and the Therapeutic Substances Bill.

Immediate source of acquisition:

The W. M. Hughes Papers were presented to the National Library of Australia by Dame Mary Hughes in 1953. The collection was received in two consignments. One consisted of papers taken from the Perpetual Trustee Company comprising material from Hughes' Lindfield home and from his office rooms at the Commonwealth Offices, Sydney; the other came directly from Lindfield. Lists of the contents of both consignments are held in the Library's Manuscript Branch. With the agreement of the executors and the Library, much of the collection, was for a time, held at the Australian National University by Fitzhardinge. He was permitted sole access to the collection while writing the biography Hughes commissioned in 1951. Fitzhardinge's own papers documenting the writing of the biography are also held by the Library (MS 5400). The papers transferred to the Library in 1953 are by no means the total collection of Hughes' personal papers, although it is impossible to say what proportion has survived. (see Fitzhardinge, p.936).

Names:

Hughes, W. M. (1862-1952)

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