| Summary |
The papers in MS 987 include official and semi-official correpondence and minutes, reports, speeches, pamphlets and press cuttings relating to J.J. Dedman's terms as a minister and as a member of the Australian Labor Party. Subjects cover the C.S.I.R.O., Snowy Mountains Authority, Australian Security Organisation, War Service Land Settlement and the Geneva Trade negotiations and formulation of GATT, 1947, the Havana Conference on Trade and Employment, 1948, and the British Finance Ministers Conference in London in 1949. Correspondents include J.B. Chifley, H.C. Coombs, Sir David Rivett, Sir Frederick Shedden, A.S. Brown, L.F. Crisp, W.E. Dunk, S.G. McFarlane, W.A. McLaren and F.H. Wheeler (18 boxes).
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| Biography/History |
Farmer, politician and statesman. John Johnstone Dedman was born in Scotland in 1896. During World War I, as an officer in the British Army, Dedman saw active service at Gallipoli, Egypt and France. In 1917 he transferred to the British Indian Army and fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. He resigned in 1922 and moved to Australia where he took up farming. He joined the Country Party and in 1927 stood unsuccessfully for the seat of Upper Yarra in the Legislative Assembly. In 1940 he was elected as the Labor Member for Corio, Victoria, in the House of Representatives. In Parliament Dedman was appointed Minister for War Organisation of Industry, 1941-1945, Minister for Postwar Reconstruction, 1945-1949, and Minister in charge of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, 1941-1949. After Dedman lost the seat of Corio in 1949, he resumed farming but remained a member of the Australian Labor Party. From 1955 he worked as Australian director with the World Council of Churches on the resettlement of refugees. In 1966, he was appointed to the council of the Australian National University and, in the same year, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts. The ANU had awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 1964 and named a building in his honour in 1970. Dedman died in Canberra in 1973.
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