(b. Creswick, Victoria, 8 Jan. 1885; d. Canberra, 5 July 1945) Australian; Leader of the Australian Labor Party 1935 – 45, Prime Minister 1941 – 5 Curtin was the son of Irish Catholic immigrants. His education was partly self-administered and partly gleaned from his association with prominent Victorian socialists and radicals. Having moved to Perth he became editor of the Westralian Worker, organ of the Australian Workers' Union, until winning the seat of Fremantle in 1928. Prior to his becoming leader of the Labor Party in 1935, Curtin gained a reputation for his pacifism. He organized unions against conscription during the First World War, and was jailed and fined for sedition. His drinking problem also became well known, and he had to pledge to abstain from alcohol before being chosen as Labor's leader.

Curtin became Prime Minister in October 1941, shortly before Australian's worst fears were realized with Japanese military victories throughout South East Asia and the Pacific, including the supposedly impregnable fortress of Singapore. His response was to announce that "Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom", a comment which has since been seized on as signalling Australia's reorientation in world affairs.

As a wartime Prime Minister, Curtin held together an often fractious Labor Party. He agonized over the deployment of Australian troops in Middle Eastern and South Pacific theatres; and at the beginning of 1943 he extended conscription for military service beyond the boundaries of Australian shores. He remained committed, however, to his socialist convictions and introduced unemployment and sickness benefits and a reconstruction programme designed to enlarge on the welfare state. The crisis of the war also enabled Curtin to centralize powers in taxation, banking, and industrial regulation at the expense of the Australian states, a transformation in state — federal relations which would not be reversed after the war.

Curtin was a brilliant speaker who inspired many, including opponents. He continued in office after a serious heart attack in November 1944, but died before he could celebrate the end of the war.

A Dictionary of Political Biography. Copyright © 1998, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.