- Title
- Antipodean Imperialist: Sir John Latham, a political biography, 1902 to 1934
- Creator
- Kilmister, Michael
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2019
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- This dissertation examines Sir John Latham’s imperial ideology from the turn of the twentieth century, and traces how it shaped his political outlook and actions in the course of his parliamentary career, 1922-1934. Latham emerged as a very important political figure at a pivotal period for Australia and the British Empire. In response to emergent national sentiment in Australia and other settler societies before the First World War and after, British policymakers and intellectuals developed an overarching ideology that recast the British Empire as an interdependent yet loosely organised Commonwealth. Latham worked to translate and cement this liberal imperial worldview for Australian politics and diplomacy, lending it a conservative inflection in the process. Drawing on overlooked archival material, this thesis demonstrates that he developed and tested his antipodean pro-British imperialism in the exclusive meeting places of like-minded conservatives and applied its core tenets consistently in the making of national and imperial policy. Even though the British Empire rarely demonstrated the cohesion Latham desired, he remained committed to its causes. This dissertation retrieves Latham from a nationalist narrative, revealing that he pursued national interests within a British imperial framework. By re-establishing the all-encompassing importance of the British Empire to his political behaviour, I argue pro-British imperialism permeated the positions Latham took on domestic politics and international issues, notably the Australian Eastern Mission (1934). This thesis also contextualises and examines in detail, for the first time, Latham’s contribution to the canon of interwar imperial thought, using his book, Australia and the British Commonwealth (1929). Overshadowed by the prime ministers under whom he served, this thesis demonstrates that Latham was in many important respects the driving force behind Australia’s interwar imperial orientation.
- Subject
- Australian politics; imperialism; liberalism; British Commonwealth of Nations; British Empire
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1403412
- Identifier
- uon:35168
- Rights
- Copyright 2019 Michael Kilmister
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
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| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 1 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
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