Minister for Industry, 1938-1940

Component identifier:

Series 41

Content Summary:

Hughes was appointed Minister for Industry in November 1938 and held this responsibility until the cabinet reshuffle a month after the September 1940 general election.

The series contains only a few papers including letters from the Australian Power Alcohol and Liquid Fuel League, Hume Cook, the Wool Repackers Association, Maritime Transport Council employees, temperance groups, G. Buckland and J. Cranwell. The subjects covered are shipbuilding, industrial trouble at a small arms factory in Lithgow, ship cargo lifting equipment and government subsidisation of the wine industry. Letters Patent appointing Hughes to this ministerial folio and a leather document wallet for signing papers complete the series.

Comprises Folder 1 and Folios 1-4.

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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