| Creator: |
|
| Date of birth: |
1890 |
| Date of death: |
1946 |
| Biography: |
Percival Edgar Deane was born in Melbourne in 1890. Educated at University High School, he became a Methodist lay preacher, sold typewriters and, after learning shorthand, a clerk at the University of Melbourne. He also founded and edited 'Australian Golfer'. Enlisting in the AIF in 1914, he was posted to the 1st Australian General Hospital in Cairo where he re-met (Sir) James Barrett, whom he had known earlier at the University. Together they published 'The Australian Army Medical Corps in Egypt' in 1918. The most significant event of Deane's career was his appointment as Private Secretary to Prime Minister William Morris Hughes in November 1916, in which role he attended the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919. He became Secretary of the Prime Minister's Department in 1921; by then he was regarded as the most influential public servant in Canberra. He was Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, 1929-1932, under Prime Minister Stanley Melbourne Bruce and then, his star now on the wane, a member of the War pensions Entitlement Appeals Tribunal. Deane retired in 1936; he died in Melbourne in 1946. |
| Activities/Occupation: |
Public servants, Soldiers |
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