Minister for External Affairs, 1937-1940

Component identifier:

Series 42

Content Summary:

Hughes was one of a rapid succession of ministers responsible for the Department of External Affairs following its re-establishment in 1935. He replaced Sir George Pearce in November 1937, held it during the brief Page Government appointed after Lyons' death, and was replaced by Sir Henry Gullett in the first Menzies Government of April 1939.

Letters, cables, memoranda, reports, cabinet papers, newscuttings, printed material and documents on this portfolio in the collection constitute Series 42. It consists principally of cables, memoranda, letters and reports, often being circulated copies of communications addressed to the Prime Minister or the Department Secretary. The correspondents include the various Secretaries of State for Dominion Affairs, Alfred Stirling, Keith Officer, Colonel W. R. Hodgson, John Hood, J. A. Lyons, Longfield Lloyd, and the Japanese and Chinese Consuls-General Wakamatsa and C. J. Pao.

The cabinet papers are agenda and refer to the International Labour Organisation, the granting of credits to the Spanish Government to purchase Australian wheat, oil concessions, and the League of Nations. Other subjects covered in Series 42 include the Senate Standing Committee on External and Territorial Affairs, the British Commonwealth Relations Conference (1938), the British diplomatic staff, and Hughes' criticism of the Dominions Office (August 1935).

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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