The Robert Menzies Institute will be created to honour Australia’s longest-serving prime minister and will include a museum, library and initiatives to raise awareness of the late Liberal leader.

The Menzies Research Centre and the University of Melbourne have combined to create the institute, which will host public exhibitions, lectures and activities for schools.

The institute will be housed in the building where Sir Robert studied law at the university more than a century ago. Sir Robert also served as University of Melbourne chancellor from 1967 to 1972, after retiring from politics.

The institute will contain a collection of Sir Robert’s documents, recordings and artefacts, much of which will open to researchers and the public for the first time.

MRC executive director Nick Cater said the creation of the institute would be a pivotal moment for the study of the former Liberal prime minister, who ran Australia from 1939 to 1941 and from 1949 to 1966.

“Half a century after Menzies’ retirement from public life, his contribution to the making of modern Australia is at last being recognised,” Mr Cater said.

“There can be no more appropriate home for this institute than in the historic heart of Australia’s most prestigious university, in the very building in which Menzies studied law.”

Former diplomat Georgina Downer will be the inaugural director, and the institute will be governed by a board headed by former Qantas chairman Leigh Clifford AO.

Other directors include former Liberal political adviser Peta Credlin, Professor Ian Harper and former Howard government minister David Kemp.

Ms Downer told The Weekend Australian the institute was working with Sir Robert’s family to source potential new material that could be displayed or become part of the wider collection.

“We will be collecting things of particular interest,” she said.

The institute will be located in the historic Old Quad’s east wing at the university.

Sir Robert was born in the Victorian Mallee town of Jeparit in 1894. He died in 1978, aged 83.

University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Professor Duncan Maskell said the institute would become a hub for education and community engagement.

“The institute will recognise the work and legacy of a remarkable Australian prime minister and draw from the Robert Menzies Collection of books, photograph albums, periodicals and notebooks held at the university’s Baillieu Library,” he said.

“It will be working closely with a network of Australian prime ministerial libraries and collections and is expected to become a hub for scholarly collaboration and public engagement.

“The University of Melbourne is grateful for the support of the Australian government to help launch the institute as it becomes a focus for collaboration across disciplines, academic institutions and cultural partners, both nationally and internationally.”

By John Ferguson

Originally published in The Australian, 30 April 2021

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