A great Australian life: Sir John Monash

There’s a university, a metropolitan city, a hospital and even a freeway named after him, and his face is printed on every $100 note, but experts agree the legacy of World War 1 general and former University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor Sir John Monash is not as widely acknowledged as it ought to be.

Elected University Vice-Chancellor in 1923, a position he held until his death in 1931, John Monash also had been a student of engineering of the University, and was described by one friend and biographer as having a “strenuous, almost aggressive” personality.

While studying part-time he was put in charge of construction of the Outer Circle railway line, and in 1890, aged 25, became manager of the Melbourne Harbour Trust.

Over his student career, he earned a masters in engineering, and arts and law degrees, and sat examinations to become an army major in 1887.

Writing in the University’s 150th anniversary publication 150 Years: 150 stories, Peter McPhee and Juliet Flesch say he combined a military, academic and business career, and “proved to be an outstanding general during campaigns in Gallipoli and France.”

Indeed commentators often note that amid the nation’s interest in Gallipoli and World War 1, which largely focuses on the pathos and the tragedy of wasted life, the successful repatriation of nearly 160,000 personnel at war’s end, orchestrated by Monash in only eight months, is one of the most remarkable and often overlooked of ‘war stories’.

An adept pianist who also had a talent for writing, Monash was clearly a man of some accomplishments, having served as Chief Censor in the early part of the war, and Chief Intelligence Officer immediately prior to it.

Official war historian Charles Bean wrote that he continually “exhibited that extreme care through all the intricate details of organisation which always greatly impressed the Higher Command, and gave confidence to the men.”

So why the poverty of recognition of a man who after the war also oversaw the expansion of the electicity industry which eventually powered the entire state of Victoria? Historian, and his biographer, Geoffrey Serle wrote that during the war Bean and the newspaperman Keith Murdoch both attempted to undermine Monash because of their discomfort with his Jewish/German heritage.

Referring to Monash, Bean wrote: “We do not want Australia represented by men mainly because of their ability, natural and inborn in Jews, to push themselves.”

Despite this, Monash’s distinguished career of service and development of his country, of the field of engineering and his energy as a man, make him one of the great characters of Australian history.

Perhaps his greatest achievement is that remarked upon by Serle: that Monash’s “presence and prestige...made anti-Semitism...impossible in Australia”.