William Joshua Smith (1905-1995), William John McKell (detail), 1974, Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection. View full image
Governor-General, 11 March 1947 to 8 May 1953
William McKell (1891-1985) rose from working as a boilermaker – which he described as ‘the hardest, the dirtiest and the most dangerous trade’1 – to become the second Australian-born Governor-General. After his appointment, he observed that ‘my old mates don’t like me because of my new mates, and my new mates don’t like me because of my old mates’.2 Even so, former NSW Labor Premier Jack Lang later described him as ‘the best Governor-General Australia has ever had’.3
McKell was born in Pambula, NSW, but his family moved to Candelo and Surry Hills before settling in Redfern. He left school at 13 to work as a messenger and then boilermaker. Having joined the ALP in his late teens, he became a labour organiser and by 1914 was the assistant secretary of the Boilermakers’ Union.
In 1917, McKell was elected to the NSW Parliament, riding a wave of anti-conscription sentiment to represent the Labor heartland seat of Redfern.4 He combined parliamentary duties with a legal career, and was called to the Bar in 1925.5 While the 1920s and 1930s were a tumultuous period for NSW Labor politics, McKell navigated this with his characteristically pragmatic approach to politics, deploring sectarianism as ‘littleness of mind’.6 He replaced Lang as party leader in 1938 and achieved a landslide victory in the 1941 election, becoming Premier and Treasurer of a decidedly reformist government. In 1946, he secured the appointment of John Northcott as the first Australian-born Governor of NSW.7
McKell retired from the NSW Parliament in 1947 and was appointed Governor-General shortly after. Responding to criticism, Prime Minister Ben Chifley justified his choice of McKell on the grounds that he had ‘a full appreciation of the aspirations and ideals of the Australian people’.8 With a ‘relaxed and friendly style’,9 McKell soon became popular with the Australian public.
When Robert Menzies became Prime Minister in 1949, tensions appeared inevitable, as Menzies had previously described McKell’s position as ‘a shocking and humiliating appointment’.10 However, by the time McKell’s term as Governor-General ended in 1953, Menzies praised him as a man of ‘dignity, knowledge of affairs, and impartiality’.11 Despite criticism from the ALP, McKell granted Menzies a double dissolution in 1951 due to the Senate’s refusal to pass the Commonwealth Bank Bill. King George VI personally knighted McKell as GCMG in 1951.
On leaving Government House on 8 May 1953, McKell retired to his farm near Goulburn before later moving to Double Bay. He died in Sydney on 11 January 1985, survived by his wife Minnie, whom he had married in 1920, and their three children.
William Joshua Smith
Sydney-born William Smith (1905-1995) studied drawing, painting and sculpture at East Sydney Technical College and the Sydney Art School, and became an exhibiting member of the NSW Society of Artists in the 1930s. During World War II he worked for the Civil Constructional Corps as a camouflage artist with fellow artists Douglas Annand, William Dobell, and Donald Friend. Smith won the Archibald Prize in 1944 for his portrait of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Rosevear. In 1953, he became a fellow of the Royal Art Society of NSW and from 1967 to 1972 taught portraiture there before setting up his own school in Lane Cove. He continued to paint portraits for commissions and competitions as well as landscapes and other works. His work is represented in major state galleries and the Manly Art Gallery held a retrospective of his work in 2005-06.
12
William John McKell
by William Joshua Smith
1974
Oil on board
103.6 x 87.6 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection
References
1. C Cunneen, ‘McKell, Sir William John (1891–1985)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 2012, accessed 31 August 2021. Information in this biography has also been taken from: B Carroll,
Australia’s Governors-General: From Hopetoun to Jeffery, Rosenberg Publishing Pty Ltd, Kenthurst, NSW, 2004; M Easson, ed.,
McKell, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1988.
2. Carroll, op. cit., p. 120.
3. Ibid.
4. B Nairn, ‘Parliamentarian: W.J. McKell in the New South Wales Parliament 1917–39’, in Easson, op. cit., p. 9; Cunneen, op. cit.
5. ‘King approves Mr WJ McKell as Governor-General’,
The Canberra Times, 1 February 1947, p. 1, accessed 12 October 2021; C Cunneen,
William John McKell: Boilermaker, Premier, Governor-General, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2000, p. 64
6. Cunneen, ‘McKell, Sir William John (1891–1985)’, op. cit.
7. H Coates, ‘Northcott, Sir John (1890–1966)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy, 2000, accessed 1 September 2021.
8. Carroll, op. cit., p. 118.
9. Cunneen, ‘McKell, Sir William John (1891–1985)’, op. cit.
10. C Cunneen, ‘An Australian Family at Government House’, in Easson, op. cit., p. 163.
11. Cunneen, ‘McKell, Sir William John (1891–1985)’, op. cit.
12. Information in this biography has also been taken from: E Riddler, ‘Smith, William Joshua (1905–1995)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 2021; FWD Rost, ‘Joshua Smith: b. 1905’, Design & Art Australia Online, 2011; ‘Smith, Joshua (William Joshua)’, A McCulloch, S McCulloch and E McCulloch Childs, eds,
The New McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Aus Art Editions in association with The Miegunyah Press, 2006, p. 895. Websites accessed 26 March 2021.