John Curtin

Curtin left school at 13 and spent his twenties in Melbourne's labour movement, rising to federal president of the Timberworkers' Union by 1914. He led the campaign against overseas conscription in 1916, spent time in jail for refusing a compulsory medical exam, then moved to Perth in 1917 to edit the Westralian Worker. After three failed attempts he won the Division of Fremantle in 1928 - the only prime minister ever elected from Western Australia. He lost his seat in Labor's 1931 wipeout, reclaimed it in 1934, and a year later beat Frank Forde for the party leadership by a single vote. His minority government took power in October 1941. Two months later Japan hit Malaya and Pearl Harbor, and Curtin faced bombing raids on northern Australia with a British force that had already crumbled. He placed Australian troops under Douglas MacArthur, forged a tight bond with the American general, and navigated the conscription issue that had torn Labor apart a generation earlier. The party won nearly two-thirds of the House in 1943. He died in office in July 1945, worn down by the weight of it, weeks before Japan surrendered.