Sir Frederick Wheeler (1914-1994) rose to the most senior ranks of the ‘mandarins’ who oversaw the transformation of Australian government in the decades following World War II. Coming to Canberra early in the recruitment of graduates into war-time government, and later as chairman of the Public Service Board in the 1960s and secretary of the Treasury in the 1970s, Wheeler was central to the expanding reach of economic policy and the cultivation (as he would put it) of a newly-professionalised bureaucratic ‘style’. Practised in both the formal and informal networks of government, this synthesis saw him judged ‘the most capable politician to reside in Canberra’. But Wheeler’s ‘style, and all it encompassed, also generated its own conflicts, exemplified in confrontations with all federal governments between 1968 and 1979. Like many of his peers, his path reflected careers suddenly opening to talents, a remarkable expansion of opportunities and the recognition of skills, and marked changes in the institutions and ambit of Australian public policy. Yet a calculated self-fashioning was also part of these processes. Researching and writing his biography has presented several challenges, both in giving context to what Wheeler ‘in my cold-blooded way’ called ‘bureaucratic facts’ and in dealing with aspects of a personality that was integral to those achievements but had darker sides. This seminar will reflect on those challenges, and invite discussion on how they might best be addressed.

Ian Hancock was a Reader in Department of History, the Faculties, ANU from 1986 to 1999 and is currently an Editorial Fellow of the Australian Dictionary of Biography. An historian of Rhodesian and Australian politics, his most recent books include biographies of Nick Greiner, Tom Hughes QC, Ainsley Gotto and (soon) Josiah Symon.

Nicholas Brown is a professor in the School of History whose books include biographies of Richard Downing and (with Susan Boden) Rick Farley, and a history of Canberra.