Artist: Charles Smith and Joan Walsh-Smith
Year of Work: 2003
Location: John Curtin Place, Kings Square. Town Hall end of High Street Mall
Asset Type: Memorial/ Permanent
Provenance: City of Fremantle
Description: Perhaps the most iconic of Australia’s prime ministers, John Curtin is bound to ordinary Australians by his working class roots and trade union advocacy, but most importantly as Australia’s war-time voice. Although Victorian by birth, Curtin made Western Australia his home in 1917 where he became an editor for a union press.
He joined federal parliament in 1928 as the elected Member of Fremantle. He became leader of the Labor Party in 1935 and prime minister in 1941 in the midst of war with Germany and Italy, with troops deployed in fronts in the middle-east and Europe. Weeks after his succession Australia was pulled into a war in the Pacific.
Curtin’s decisions strengthened relations with the United States, as their interests were directly threatened by Japan who had attacked ports in Australian and allied ports around the pacific.
Curtin died in office only weeks before the formal ending of the war in the Pacific. As Western Australia’s first and only prime minister, John Curtin is commemorated at King’s Square in Fremantle.
Image Source: Eugene Scrivener (Museum of Perth)