Papers of Professor Walter J. Waddlington

The Menzies Lectures at the University of Virginia were established in 1983 by The Sir Robert Menzies Memorial Trust, in honor of Sir Robert Menzies. Sir Robert Menzies was a Scholar in Residence at the University of Virginia School of Law in 1966, in which role he presented a series of lectures on the growth of federal power in Australian government. Those lectures were published in 1968 by the University of Virginia with the title Central Power in the Australian Commonwealth.

In 1983, the Menzies Memorial Trust sponsored its first visiting fellow at UVA, Sir Zelman Cowen, Governor-General of Australia. His visit sparked the idea of a “home-and-home” lecture series on law, politics, or history by distinguished Australian and American academics or public figures. These new Menzies Lectures would be given by visiting fellows, in alternating years, at the University of Virginia and at the Australian National University. [See: Memo from Richard A. Merrill to Dick Howard, 2/15/1984]. The original Australian committee to select lecturers included Sir Harry, Gibbs, Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, Dr. Gavin Griffity, Solicitor General of Australia, Sir Peter Finaly, Director of several large Australian public companies, and Professor Dennis Pearce of the Law School at Australian National University. UVA Law Professor Walter J. Wadlington, as an expert in Australian law, served as the American committee’s chief correspondent with the Australian National University. Also on the original American committee were former UVA president Edgar Shannon, UVA Law School Dean Richard A. Merrill, Judge John Butzner, Governor of Virginia Charles S. Robb, and UVA Law School professors Jeffrey O’Connell and Glen Robinson. [See: 1983-1984 Menzies Lectureship].

Australian Sir Robert Mason delivered the first Menzies Lecture at UVA in October 1985. In 1986, Judge Collins J. Seitz, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals from the Third Circuit and a 1940 graduate of UVA Law, was the first American visiting fellow to speak at the Australian National University as part of the Menzies Lectureship exchange.