Elected Editor of the Melbourne University Magazine and President of the
Students' Representative Council.
Photograph of
Students' Representative Council, 1916. Back row I B Fabrikant, L E B Stretton, P Kelynack, A H Edgar.
Seated K A McCarthy, Miss Norah Crawford, R G Menzies, Miss E M Kelly,
L W Craig. Absent H C Disher, J L Doubleday.
Graduates from
the University of Melbourne with First Class Final Honours in Law. He
also wins the Dwight Prize in Constitutional History, the Sir John Madden
Exhibition, the Jesse Leggatt Scholarship, the Bowen Essay Prize and the
Supreme Court Judges' Prize.
President of the Students' Representative Council - Robert Menzies middle,
front row 4
Robert Menzies graduates in Law from the University of Melbourne 3
An estimated 23,000 Australian troops die on the Somme in seven weeks
of heavy fighting.
The nation-wide
referendum to conscript men for overseas service is defeated by a narrow
margin. Men already called up would be released.
Labor Party
split: Pro-conscriptionist Prime Minister Billy Hughes decides to abandon
the anti-conscriptionists in the Labor Party and try to govern with opposition
support. He tells the house: "Enough of this. Let those who think
with me follow me." He walks from the chamber followed by 23 of
the 65 members of his party. Hughes resigns, but upon being re-commissioned
by the Governor-General, forms a new Ministry from among his followers.
When parliament resumes in 1917, it is governed by a coalition of National,
Labor and Liberal.
Hotels close
at 6 o'clock starting the "six o'clock swill".