Join the Robert Menzies Institute to celebrate the launch of Joseph Cook: The knight who climbed up a mineshaft on Wednesday 24 May 2023 5:30pm – 7:00pm.

This new addition to the Australian Biographical Monographs series written by Zachary Gorman will be launched by Deputy Chair of the Robert Menzies Institute The Hon David Kemp AC.

Cook was Australia’s sixth prime minister, and his Liberal Party featured Menzies’s uncle and political mentor Sydney Sampson. Cook helped to directly shape the tradition of Australian liberalism which Menzies would later revive when he founded the Liberal Party of Australia. It is a little known fact that it was Cook, rather than Menzies, who became the first Liberal to win an outright majority at a Federal election, doing so in 1913.

David Kemp is a former Federal Member and Minister in the Howard Government. Before entering Parliament he was Professor of Politics at Monash University, and after leaving Parliament Professor and Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Melbourne. He is the former Chairman of the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House and of the Australian Heritage Council. He has published books on voting behaviour and political analysis, and is particularly known for his ground-breaking series on Australian Liberalism published by Melbourne University Press.

Light refreshments will be served from 5:30pm, with formalities commencing at 6:00pm.

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About The Book

Sir Joseph Cook was Australia’s sixth Prime Minister and a truly remarkable man. His greatest political achievement was becoming the first leader of the Australian centre-right to win a parliamentary majority in their own right, directly shaping the enduring and unique understanding of what liberalism means in this country. This political story is inherently intertwined with an astounding personal one, as Cook lifted himself up by the bootstraps from an adolescence spent providing for his family in an English coalmine to become a knight and statesman.

Cook’s life demonstrates that Australia was and is a land of tremendous opportunity and social mobility – and that is precisely why he argued passionately for the necessity of individual freedom and personal responsibility as the true driving force behind national progress. These values were informed by a profound belief in Christian tenets, and the agency, autonomy and duty of each human being. Initially entering NSW Parliament as a foundational member of the Labor Party, Cook’s career charts the how and the why of the emergence of the Australian party system and the philosophical lines of cleavage which continue to shape our nation.

Dr Zachary Gorman
Dr Zachary Gorman is the academic coordinator at the Robert Menzies Institute. A professional historian, Gorman has worked as a researcher and academic since 2013, including several years at the University of Wollongong, where he received his PhD. He has previously written two books, Sir Joseph Carruthers: Founder of the New South Wales Liberal Party and Summoning Magna Carta: Freedom’s Symbol Over a Millennium, and edited and annotated the 250th anniversary edition of Captain James Cook, R.N.: 150 Years After. He was also editor of The Young Menzies: Success, Failure, Resilience 1894–1942. He has been published in a wide range of academic journals.