Iven Giffard Mackay - Post War

Post War

Mackay was approached to consider nomination as a Liberal Party of Australia candidate for the Australian Senate, but declined. Instead, he accepted a directorship of Australian Cotton Textile Industries. From 1950 to 1952, he chaired the New South Wales recruiting committee which was set up by the Federal government to increase enlistment in the armed forces. The University of Sydney appointed Mackay an honorary Esquire Bedell in 1950 and awarded him an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws in 1952. When Blamey died in 1951, Mackay rushed to Melbourne to be one of his pallbearers. Mackay visited Greece in 1952 for the unveiling of a memorial to British Commonwealth servicemen who died in the 1941 campaign. In 1961, he returned for the dedication of the Commonwealth War Cemetery at Faliro. This time he also revisited the Gallipoli battlefields, sailing to the Dardanelles on HMY Britannia as a guest of Field Marshal Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester. Mackay climbed from the beach at ANZAC Cove up to Lone Pine once more. When it became known that he was visiting the United States in 1961, the United States Army took him to see Fort Sill.

Mackay died at his home in East Lindfield, New South Wales, on 30 September 1966 and was cremated after a service at St Stephen's, Sydney. He was survived by his wife, his son and his two daughters. Veterans lined the streets and he had ten generals for his pallbearers: Herring, Woodward, Stevens, Pulver, Stevenson, Macarthur-Onslow, Dougherty, Harrison, Cullen and Galleghan. Mackay's papers and portraits are held in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.