The Prime Ministers Avenue is a collection of busts of the first twenty-nine prime ministers of Australia. They are lined along an avenue of horse chestnuts at the Ballarat Botanical Gardens, bronze casts mounted on polished granite pedestals.
The politician Richard Crouch commissioned Wallace Anderson to create the first twelve busts in 1939; he pledged £1000[a] to maintain the Avenue in perpetuity. The Governor of Victoria, Winston Dugan, unveiled the first six busts on 2 March 1940. Anderson created the first twelve from 1939 to 1943 and was later commissioned for the thirteenth and fourteenth. Ken Palmer, Victor Greenhalgh, Peter Nicholson, and Linda Klarfeld were later sculptors for the Avenue. After the Crouch fund was exhausted in 2014 with Julia Gillard's bust, the Ballarat City Council has been financing the Avenue. The council struggled to keep the Avenue up to date because of the rapid turnover of prime ministers in the 2010s.
In 1926, the Ballarat-born politician Richard Crouch (1868–1949) began a lengthy series of donations to the city's institutions and sporting clubs.[2] In June 1939, Crouch pledged £1000[b] to create life-sized busts of the twelve prime ministers of Australia. These busts would placed in what would be renamed the Prime Ministers Avenue,[4][5] the "Horse Chestnut Walk" from the begonia house to the southern end of the Ballarat Botanical Gardens.[6] Crouch felt that Ballarat suited such a memorial as it was once considered for federal capital.[4]
The Australian sculptor Wallace Anderson was commissioned for eleven busts; Stanley Bruce's was prepared in London.[7][c] In June 1939, Anderson invited Menzies and former prime ministers to sit down for him, which would take around four to five hours each.[4] Working at his studio in Hawthorn, Anderson extensively studied photographs, public library records and biographies to design the sculptures of those he could not meet in person;[7][10] he also sought their relatives' approval with the likeness.[11] He moulded clay models with head-shaped armatures, and then used them to create plaster moulds and casts. From the plaster casts he made wax casts from gelatine moulds. The wax casts were then sent to Melbourne to be cast in bronze,[4][7] in cooperation with Harold Herbert.[12] The finished busts are mounted on plain granite bases and polished Harcourt granite pedestals.[4]
Bronze busts of every Prime Minister from Barton to Lyons stand on granite plinths ranged on either side of a wide path. The passer-by can study the faces of our national leaders at his ease. Barton had a fine head for a sculptor, Deakin a nice face, too sensitive for a tough world; the plinth for Mr. Menzies is still unadorned, owing to the war, although a divertissement was created one day after troops arrived by the discovery of a fine dough model filling the blank. Neither Mr. Fadden nor Mr. Curtin has so far even a pillar to his name. But time will set right these omissions, and the long avenue ahead sunnily presupposes many years of Australian national progression.
H. Drake-Brockman, 1944[13]
On 2 March 1940, the first six busts were unveiled by the Governor of Victoria, Winston Dugan[14][15] during his first visit to Ballarat. T. W. Cotton substituted for the unwell Crouch.[16] It took two more years for Anderson to complete all the busts. In late 1941, he was still working on the twelfth prime minister, Robert Menzies, with an empty pedestal already in place at the Avenue.[17] In October, Crouch paid £1000 in a government bond to the council. The council became trustees of the interest, which would be accumulated in a savings account to pay for new busts.[18] Anderson finally completed the Menzies bust in September 1943 and it was installed the following month.[19] When Menzies first saw the bust, he laughed and did not recognize himself, but conceded his praise to Anderson as he had never sat for him.[20][21]
On 26 January 1944, it was discovered that the busts of Andrew Fisher and W. M. Hughes had been stolen from their pedestals. This was the first interference with the Avenue since its institution.[22] They were recovered undamaged the next month, Fisher's at the George V statue on Sturt Street and Hughes' at the Ballarat Soldiers' Convalescent Depot.[23][24] The theft was believed to be a joke.[25]
Following another £1000 donation from Crouch, Anderson sculpted the busts of prime ministers Arthur Fadden and John Curtin. They were added to the Prime Ministers Avenue in March 1946.[26] In September, Ben Chifley sat down for twenty-year-old Ballarat Arts School student Ken Palmer, who modeled Chiefly's bust for the Prime Ministers Avenue. This was the first time Chiefly has accepted a request for him to sit for an artist. Both Chifley and his private secretary N. M. Tyrell expressed their approval of the likeness.[27][28] The bust was completed in October 1947.[29] A replica mounted on a sandstone pedestal was later displayed at Bathurst's memorial to Chifley.[30]
Crouch died on 7 April 1949.[2] He had bequested enough money for the Prime Ministers Avenue until the trust was finally drained in 2014 with Julia Gillard's bust.[31]
In October 1975, a police investigation ensured after the head of Gough Whitlam's bust was stolen.[32]
In April 1995, the busts of Joseph Cook, Joseph Lyons and John Gorton were stolen. The busts of Chiefly and Fisher were pulled over and others were knocked down.[33]
The 2010s saw the succession of five Australian prime ministers. The council consequently struggled to keep the Prime Ministers Avenue up to date. The funds bequeathed by Richard Crouch ran out in 2014 with Julia Gillard's bust. Ballarat councillor Des Hudson said that when the council asked the federal government for funding, they suggested that the council should finance the Prime Ministers Avenue themselves.[31]
Ballarat councillor Des Hudson said that their requests to the federal government for funding were returned only with suggestions that the council should pay for the Prime Ministers Avenue themselves.
In 2018, the combined cost of one bust and its plinth was around $50,000.[5][31]
In 2014, Ballarat councillor Des Hudson said that, although the council had requested funding from the federal government, they only suggested the council should pay for the Prime Ministers Avenue themselves. In 2018, the city's director of development and planning confirmed that enough funding had been allocated for the Avenue through the public arts program.
The bust of Abbott was created by Linda Klarfeld, born in 1976 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. In creating the bust she attempted to impart a sense of Abbott's perspective, including the "stamina to cope with day to day criticism".[34]
The bust of Malcolm Turnbull was created by Linda Klarfeld and was commissioned using funding from the City of Ballarat's Public Art Program.[35] Turnbull attended the unveiling in November 2022.[36]
When the Prime Ministers Avenue was first announced, the Australian humourist Lennie Lower criticised it: "the gardens are a place for quiet relaxation, and it is horrible to contemplate the idea of a bust leering out of the shrubbery and frightening little children." He thought that the temptation to vandalise the busts would be "irresistable".[37]
In 1952, photographer Ernest Shea compared the Prime Ministers Avenue to "a line of skeletons sticking their heads up out of the ground."[38] When Robert Menzies visited Ballarat in March 1956 to open the Ballarat Begonia Festival, he reportedly concurred with comments that his bust was not a good likeness and that "it would be a good thing if the busts were removed". Residents flatly refused to remove Menzies' bust.[39]
Fraser's bust was originally created by Victor Greenhalgh. However, Greenhalgh and others were critical of the final casting. Following Greenhalgh's death in 1983, Peter Nicholson was asked to create a new bust for Fraser, which was completed after the bust of Fraser's successor Hawke had been installed.
Nicholson believes that John Howard was dissatisfied with the size of his lower lip,[40] and it is said that Paul Keating was unhappy with his bust's weak chin and pointy nose.[41]
With the cost of each bust ranging from $45,000 to $65,000, historically bequeathed funds for the construction of busts for future Prime Ministers ran out after Julia Gillard's bust. The bust of Tony Abbott, was funded by the Ballarat council in 2017. The project is a part of the City of Ballarat's Arts & Culture Public Art Program.
The Ballarat council has repeatedly and unsuccessfully lobbied the federal government for funding in perpetuity, and has also called for expressions of interest from sculptors.[42][43]
