Sir John McEwen (29 March 1900 – 20 November 1980) was the 18th prime minister of Australia, serving from 1967 to 1968 in a caretaker capacity following the disappearance of prime minister Harold Holt. He was the leader of the Country Party from 1958 to 1971, serving as the inaugural deputy prime minister of Australia from 1968 to 1971.
McEwen was born in Chiltern, Victoria. He was orphaned at the age of seven and raised by his grandmother, initially in Wangaratta and then in Dandenong. McEwen left school when he was 13 and joined the Australian Army at the age of 18, but the war ended before his unit was shipped out. He was nonetheless eligible for a soldier settlement scheme, and selected a property at Stanhope. He established a dairy farm, but later bought a larger property and farmed beef cattle.
After several previous unsuccessful candidacies, McEwen was elected to the House of Representatives at the 1934 federal election. He was first elevated to cabinet by Joseph Lyons in 1937. McEwen became deputy leader of the Country Party in 1943, under Arthur Fadden. He replaced Fadden as leader in 1958, and remained in the position until his retirement from politics in 1971. He served in parliament for 36 years in total, spending a record 25 years as a government minister.
The Liberal-Country Coalition returned to power in 1949, initially under Robert Menzies and then under Harold Holt. McEwen came to have a major influence on economic policy, particularly in the areas of agriculture, manufacturing, and trade. As soon as McEwen became the leader of the Country Party, he became the de facto deputy prime minister.
In December 1967, Harold Holt disappeared and was presumed dead while in office. As the de facto deputy prime minister, McEwen was commissioned as caretaker prime minister while the Liberal Party elected a new leader. He was 67 at the time, the oldest person to become prime minister and only the third from the Country Party, as well as the last to be born before Australia's federation. McEwen ceded power to John Gorton after 23 days in office in January 1968, and in recognition of his service was appointed deputy prime minister, the first time that position had been formally created. He was Australia's third shortest serving prime minister, after Earle Page and Frank Forde. He remained as deputy prime minister until his retirement from politics in 1971.
McEwen was born on 29 March 1900, at his parents' home in Chiltern, Victoria. He was the son of Amy Ellen (née Porter) and David James McEwen. His mother was born in Victoria, and had English and Irish ancestry. His father was of Ulster Scots origin, born in Mountnorris, County Armagh (in present-day Northern Ireland). He worked as a chemist, and also served a term on the Chiltern Shire Council. The family surname was originally spelled "MacEwen", but was altered upon David McEwen's arrival in Australia in 1889.
In his memoirs, McEwen recounted that he had almost no memories of his parents. His mother died of lung disease in March 1902, just before his second birthday; she had given birth to a daughter, Amy, a few months earlier. She was the second of his father's three wives, and McEwen had three half-siblings – Gladys, Evelyn, and George. After their mother's death, McEwen and his sister were raised by their father, living in the rooms behind his chemist's shop. He died from meningitis in September 1907, when his son was seven. John and Amy were sent to live with their widowed grandmother, Nellie Porter (née Cook), while their younger half-brother went to live with his mother in Melbourne. They had never lived with their older half-sisters, who had been sent to live in a children's home upon their mother's death in 1893.
McEwen's grandmother ran a boardinghouse in Wangaratta. He grew up in what he described as "pretty frugal circumstances", and in 1912 his grandmother moved the family to Dandenong, on the outskirts of Melbourne. McEwen attended state schools in Wangaratta and Dandenong until the age of thirteen, when he began working for Rocke, Tompsitt & Co., a drug manufacturer in central Melbourne. He initially worked as a switchboard operator, for which he was paid 15 shillings per week. McEwen began attending night school in Prahran, and in 1915 passed an examination for the Commonwealth Public Service and began working as a junior clerk at the office of the Commonwealth Crown Solicitor. His immediate superior there was Fred Whitlam, the father of another future prime minister, Gough Whitlam.
With World War I ongoing, McEwen resolved to enter the military when he turned 18. He joined the Australian Army Cadets and completed a Royal Australian Navy course in radiotelegraphy, hoping to qualify for the newly opened Royal Military College, Duntroon. He passed the entrance exam, but instead chose to enlist as a private in the Australian Imperial Force, in order to be posted overseas sooner. The war ended before his unit shipped out. Despite the briefness of his service, McEwen was eligible for the Victorian government's soldier settlement scheme. He selected an 86-acre (35 ha) lot at Stanhope, on land that previously been a sheep station. As with many other soldier-settlers, McEwen initially did not have the money or the expertise needed to run a farm. He spent several months working as a farm labourer and later did the same as a stevedore at the Port of Melbourne, eventually saving enough money to return to Stanhope and establish his dairy farm.
McEwen's new property was virtually undeveloped, with only a single existing building (a small shack) and no fences, irrigation, or paddocks. He and the other soldier-settlers in the Stanhope district suffered a number of hardships in the early 1920s, including droughts, rabbit plagues, and low milk prices. Many of them were forced off their properties, allowing those who survived to expand their holdings relatively cheaply. In 1926, McEwen sold his property and bought a larger farm nearby, which he named Chilgala (a portmanteau of Chiltern and Tongala, the birthplaces of himself and his wife). He switched from dairy to beef cattle, and was able to expand his property by buying abandoned farms from the government. At its peak, Chilgala covered 3,000 acres (1,200 ha) and carried 1,800 head of cattle. McEwen had a reputation as one of the best farmers in the district, and came to be seen by the other soldier-settlers as a spokesman and leader. He represented them in meetings with government officials, and was secretary of the local Water Users' League, which protected the interests of irrigators. In 1923, he co-founded the Stanhope Dairy Co-operative, and was elected as the company's inaugural chairman.
McEwen joined the Victorian Farmers' Union in 1919 at the age of 19 and was soon active in the Country Party, its political wing. He first stood for parliament at the 1932 Victorian state election, contesting the Legislative Assembly seat of Waranga. While unsuccessful, he more than doubled the Country Party's vote from the previous election. His campaigning efforts brought him to the attention of party leaders and he soon joined the state executive.
In 1934, the Victorian Country Party's central council mandated that its federal MPs and senators sign a pledge requiring strict party discipline and giving the central council a veto over the terms of any coalition government. The party's three MPs and two senators in Victoria refused to sign the pledge, receiving support from their parliamentary colleagues and the party's federal executive. Country MP William Hill decided to quit politics altogether in protest, with McEwen endorsed by the Victorian party as its replacement for Hill in the seat of Echuca. At the 1934 election he faced two "Independent Country" opponents supported by the federal party, with the party's federal leader Earle Page actively campaigning in their favour. McEwen nonetheless retained Echuca with the aid of favourable preference flows from Australian Labor Party (ALP) voters.