Personal
On 21 September 1921 he married Annie Mills McLeod; they had no children. In 1966, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). After a long illness Dame Anne McEwen died on 10 February 1967.
At the time of becoming Prime Minister in December of that year, McEwen was a widower, being the first Australian Prime Minister unmarried during his term of office. (The next such case was Julia Gillard, Prime Minister from 24 June 2010, who has a domestic partner but is unmarried.)
On 26 July 1968, McEwen married Mary Eileen Byrne, his personal secretary; he was aged 68, she was 46. In retirement he distanced himself from politics, undertook some consulting work, and traveled to Japan and South Africa. Survived by his second wife, McEwen died, without heir, on 20 November 1980 at Toorak and was cremated. His estate was sworn for probate at $2,180,479. At the time of his death he was receiving a small pension from the Department of Social Security.
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“Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, provided by the words of the speech itself.”
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