Peekle

Gough Whitlam changed Australia for the better, starting with the abolition of the racist White Australia policy.

Decades before the Mosman assassination attempt on Prime Minister Arthur Calwell in 1966, the suburb was home to another Labor prime minister, albeit one who’d yet to start kindergarten.

Gough Whitlam, the towering man with the booming voice, withering wit and stark political cut-through was once a little fella living in Wolseley Road.

Much has been written about Whitlam the politician, but it’s his earlier life – and its powerful influences – that shaped the man, his policies, and Australia’s future.

Edward Gough Whitlam was born on 11 July 1916 at Kew, Melbourne to Harry (known as Fred) and Martha (Mattie), née Maddocks.

His father’s career revolved around the public service. On leaving school, Mr Whitlam senior topped the Victorian public service entrance exam. While in Mosman, he studied accounting and law at night school. Fifteen years after leaving school, he gained a formal law degree, later becoming a barrister, then admitted to the High Court of Australia.

Gough and his parents moved to Mosman in 1918 (some sources cite 1920) when Mr Whitlam was posted to the Attorney General’s Sydney office as a senior clerk. Once their house had been built, the family – now including his sister Freda, born in 1920 – moved to Turramurra in 1925.

Fred Whitlam stood for human rights, education and opportunities for all. The scholarship boy, the son of a clerk, was focused on his own betterment, and proved generational gaps between privilege and poverty could be closed. His influence on Gough was profound, and very much evident in his son’s political life and policies.

Canberra became the nation’s capital in 1927 and, with Old Parliament House a brand-new building, it was soon filled with public servants, including Mr Whitlam who was called to Canberra to the Crown Solicitor’s office. There, he quickly became Deputy Crown Solicitor, then – not much later – Crown Solicitor, a post he held for 13 years.

Mattie, Gough and Freda followed the next year, settling in suburban Blandfordia (now Forrest) where they shared a house with Fred’s brother, George, a senior officer in the Prime Minister’s Office. George was a staunch Baptist and took young Gough and Freda to church on Sundays. At some point, he gave in – so utterly fed up with Gough’s incessant questioning as to how the earth could have been created in seven days. George marked the 12-year-old as a “dangerous influence”. And the boy saw his uncle similarly.

In Canberra, Gough was schooled at Telopea Park School in 1928 and, as a not-yet-teenager, he became editor of the school’s newsletter. In 1931, he graduated with his Intermediate Certificate.

A highly intelligent and clever boy – albeit cheeky, Mr Whitlam enrolled Gough at Canberra Grammar School. After voicing his disapproval at the switch, Gough spent a year at the school – and edited the school newspaper – and had his Leaving Certificate, a year early.

Deemed too young at 16 for university, his father insisted Gough repeat his final year. It was 1933 when Gough re-sat his final school exam. A scholarship to study classics at University of Sydney was offered, but Whitlam senior decided Gough needed a more rigorous grounding in English, Ancient Greek, History, and Classics.

So, Gough returned – again – to Canberra Grammar. On the three occasions he graduated, he was Dux, and so flirted with the idea of an academic life.

A resident at St Paul’s within Sydney University, he graduated with a BA (Classics), then attained a law degree.

He was a rabid debater; loved rowing; and had crucial input into the St Paul’s College Revue, even tackling the role of the British PM, Neville Chamberlain. Gough edited the undergrad student newspaper, Hermes; the college journal, The Pauline; and co-edited the university’s Law Society journal, Blackacre.

University life, particularly the periphery, held his interest but none more than the Dramatic Society. A prominent participant was Margaret Dovey, who was studying social work. Margaret was hard to miss – a good-looking, champion swimmer who stood at 188cm (6‘ 2“). Much later, Margaret would  describe Gough as “the most delicious thing I had ever seen”; not least his towering height. He was 194cm (6’ 4”).

When Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, the call for Allied support rang out. The next month, Gough volunteered for the university’s regiment, part of the Army Reserve, and began training.

The day after the Japanese attack on Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor, Gough signed on for active service with the Royal Australian Air Force. Six months later, in June 1942 – and just weeks after he and Margaret married – he was called up and trained as a navigator before joining Squadron No. 13.

The squadron was responsible for protecting Allied convoys moving across the tips of Australia – Gove, Northern Territory, and Cooktown, Queensland – and up to Indonesia. From here, the squadron was directed to engage in bombing enemy supply camps in the Philippines.

As war was in its last throes, Flight Lieutenant Navigator E Gough Whitlam navigated a British plane, which was at US General Douglas MacArthur’s disposal. The aircraft flew the general’s staff between the Philippines and Australia.

For the future prime minister, the political flame was wildly fanned following a Labor election rally in 1943, where Arthur Calwell, among others, addressed the crowd. In time, Calwell did not at all impress Whitlam who grew to see him as a stain on the party, and the country.

Calwell published a memoir in 1972, ‘Be Just and Fear Not’ – and who insisted he was no racist, though thought non-caucasians should be segregated – a strange title given this Hitler-esque paragraph:

“I am proud of my white skin … Anybody who is not proud of his race is not a man at all. And any man who tries to stigmatise the Australian community as racist because they want to preserve this country for the white race is doing our nation great harm… I reject, in conscience, the idea that Australia should or ever can become a multi-racial society and survive.”

Gough Whitlam, as prime minister, righted many societal wrongs, but close to his heart was the early  abolishment of Calwell’s White Australia Policy. With this, the toddler from Mosman – who would later stand at Calwell’s rally – championed multiculturalism and changed the face of Australia.

He died in 2014, aged 98.