Bob Hawke - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Hawke was born in Bordertown, South Australia. His father, Clem, was a Congregationalist minister, and his uncle, Albert Hawke, was Labor Premier of Western Australia between 1953 and 1959, and was also a close friend of Prime Minister John Curtin, who was in many ways Bob Hawke's role model. Hawke's mother, Ellie, had an almost messianic belief in her son's destiny and this contributed to his supreme self-confidence throughout his career. Both his parents were of Cornish origin and he himself has stated that his background is Cornish. This led the Cornish writer and historian A.L. Rowse to write, "Bob Hawke's characteristics are as Cornish as Australian. I know them well: the aggressive individualism, the egoism, the touchiness, the liability to resentment, even a touch of vindictiveness." While attending the 1952 World Christian Youth Conference, held in Kottayam in Southern India, Hawke was struck by "this enormous sense of irrelevance of religion to the needs of the people" and abandoned his Christian beliefs. By the time he entered politics he was a self-described agnostic. Hawke told Andrew Denton in 2008 that his father's Christian faith continued to influence his outlook however: " said if you believe in the fatherhood of God you must necessarily believe in the brotherhood of man, it follows necessarily and even though I left the church and was not religious, that truth remained with me."

Hawke was raised in Perth, attending Perth Modern School and completing Bachelor of Arts in Law and Economics at the University of Western Australia. At age 15, he boasted that he would one day become Prime Minister of Australia. He joined the Labor Party in 1947, and successfully applied for a Rhodes Scholarship at the end of 1952. In 1953, Hawke went to the University of Oxford to commence a Bachelor of Arts at University College. He soon found he was covering much the same ground as his Bachelor's degree from Perth, and switched to a Bachelor of Letters, with a thesis on wage-fixing in Australia. The thesis was successfully presented in January 1956.

His academic achievements were complemented by setting a new world speed record for beer drinking; he downed 2 1/2 pints - equivalent to a yard of ale - from a sconce pot in eleven seconds as part of a college penalty. In his memoirs, Hawke suggested that this single feat may have contributed to his political success more than any other, by endearing him to a voting population with a strong beer culture.

In March 1956, Hawke married Hazel Masterson at Trinity Church, Perth, Western Australia. They would eventually have three children: Susan Pieters-Hawke (born 1957), Stephen (born 1959) and Roslyn (born 1960). Their fourth child, Robert Jr, died in his early infancy in 1963. In the same year, Hawke accepted a scholarship to undertake doctoral studies in the area of arbitration law in the law department of the Australian National University, Canberra. Soon after arrival at ANU, Hawke became the students' representative on the University Council.

In 1957, Hawke was recommended to ACTU President Albert Monk to become a research officer, replacing Harold Souter who had become ACTU Secretary. The recommendation was made by Hawke's mentor at ANU, H.P. Brown, who for a number of years had assisted the ACTU in national wage cases. Hawke decided to abandon his doctoral studies and accept the offer, moving to Melbourne.