Robert Menzies: a life, 1988-2000

Component identifier:

Series 6

Content Summary:

Sir Robert Menzies originally agreed that the journalist Frances McNicoll should write his authorised biography and gave her access to all his papers. Lady McNicoll worked on the project for several years, but found the task increasingly daunting. In 1983 the Menzies Family withdrew the commission and asked Martin to write the biography. He worked on it for 15 years, first as a Senior Fellow at the Australian National University and later in retirement. The first volume, covering the years 1894-1943, was published by Melbourne University Press in 1993, while the second volume, covering 1944-1978, appeared in 1999.

As with the Parkes biography, Martin was painstaking in collecting sources and meticulous in filing and indexing them. He was less concerned about keeping correspondence and other records of his own life and the papers in this series provide an incomplete record of the writing of a great political biography. Nevertheless, there are letters, papers relating to his research overseas, correspondence with the publisher, a large collection of reviews and some miscellaneous research files.

Immediate source of acquisition:

Allan Martin carried out much of his research on the life of Robert Menzies in the National Library and became closely acquainted with its reading rooms and staff. In 1998 he acknowledged a debt to his friends in the Manuscript Room 'who over months, nay years, took it in their stride that I had become something of a permanent fixture in their hallowed precincts'. It was therefore appropriate that in 2001 Martin should lodge his extensive research materials and indexes on Menzies in the Library. They now form series 10-13 of the Martin Papers. In 2003 his wife Beryl Rawson presented the correspondence and other files that form series 1-9 of the papers.

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