John Dedman

Australian politician

John Johnstone Dedman (2 June 1896 – 22 November 1973) was a Minister in the Australian Labor Party governments led by John Curtin and Ben Chifley. He was responsible for organising production during World War II, establishing the Australian National University, reorganising the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and developing the Snowy Mountains Scheme. Dedman represented the Federal seat of Corio, centred on Geelong between 1940 and 1949.

Dedman was born in Knowe, northwest of Newton Stewart, Wigtownshire, Scotland. He was educated by his father at village schools and Ewart Boys' High School, Newton Stewart. He enrolled in science at the University of Edinburgh in 1914, but was commissioned in 1915 as an officer in the British Army in World War I and fought at Gallipoli, Egypt and France. He then joined the British Indian Army and fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 1922 he resigned and travelled to Australia, where he bought a dairy farm near Launching Place with a friend from school, Walter McEwen. In 1925, he married McEwen's sister, Jessie Lawson.

In 1927 Dedman stood unsuccessfully as the Country Party candidate for Upper Yarra in the Victorian Legislative Assembly. However, the Country Party helped defeat a bill to establish a milk board in the Legislative Council and, as a result, he joined the Labor Party. Between 1932 and 1934, he unsuccessfully contested one federal and two state seats. He was a councillor on Upper Yarra Shire Council from 1926 to 1939 and its president in 1931 and 1937. In 1938, he studied Keynesian economics at the University of Melbourne. the Snowy Mountains Scheme, the Joint Coal Board, the Universities Commission and the Australian National University. From November 1946, Dedman was Minister for Defence.