Family Name: Curtin
Given Names: John Joseph Ambrose
Gender: Male
Birth-date: 8 January 1885
Death-date: 5 July 1945.
Marital Status: Single
Age/ Age Range: 31
Location: Brunswick, VIC
Occupation: Secretary, National Executive of the Australian Trades Union Congress’s Anti-Conscription Campaign
Primary Motivation: Conscientious non-complier: objection to military conscription
Reason for Court Appearance: Failure to enlist.
Court Name and Location: Magistrate’s Court, Brunswick, VIC.
Court Hearing Date: 22 November 1916.
Court Outcome: Sentenced to three months imprisonment. Served 3 days in Melbourne Jail, and was released when the result of the referendum became known.
Military Event:
World War 1 1914-1918
Further Information: John Curtin was born at Cresswick, Victoria, where his father served as a police officer, on 8 January 1885. John Curtin senior’s early retirement from the police force because of ill health and an unsuccessful venture in a hotel condemned the family to a life of poverty. Curtin began his working life at 14 years of age, and soon was the family’s main bread winner, supporting his mother and siblings. In the early 20th century, Curtin flirted with socialism before joining the ALP. Examples of his radical opinions appear in The Timberworker, the journal of the Timberworkers’ Union. Curtin served as the union’s organizing secretary from 1911 until 1915, when he resigned because of ill-health brought on by stress. As the National Secretary of the Australian Trade Union Congress’s Anti-Conscription campaign, he was an eloquent speaker, appearing on Yarra Bank and elsewhere. During this period, he was arrested for failing to attend a medical, and sentenced to three months in prison. Although he spent only three days in Melbourne Jail, Curtin vividly remembered the experience of being in a cramped, unventilated cell with several other men, and sleeping on the hard floor.
In 1917, he moved to Perth to become editor of the Labor newspaper the Westralian Worker, married his fiancé Elsie Needham, and settled down to suburban life in the seaside suburb of Cottesloe. Curtin was a leader of the anti-conscription campaign in Perth in 1917. His anti-war oratory brought him into conflict with the law and, along with another platform speaker, Mrs Foxcroft, he was fined for making statements that were judged as being “likely to cause disaffection to his Majesty the King”.
After several unsuccessful attempts standing for Parliament, Curtin was elected to the federal seat of Fremantle in 1928. He served in John Scullin’s Labor government from 1929 until 1931, when he lost his seat and Labor lost the election. Re-elected in 1934, Curtin became leader of the ALP in 1935 and Prime Minister of Australia in 1941, just weeks before Japan entered the Second World War. Many commentators have criticized Curtin for extending military conscription during World War II, enabling militia to be deployed in New Guinea. This act is often seen as hypocrisy of a man who had gone to prison rather than enlist in World War I, but it was a different time and different circumstances. After a lengthy illness, Curtin died in office on 5 July 1945.
Confirmatory Sources: Geoffrey Serle, ‘Curtin, John (1885–1945)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/curtin-john-9885/text17495, published first in hardcopy 1993, accessed online 11 April 2024; Lloyd Ross, John Curtin. A biography, South Melbourne, 1977, pp. 47–53.
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