Background
Mick Shann was born in Kew, Melbourne on 22 November 1917. His father was Frank Shann, a respected teacher and headmaster in Melbourne.
Mick Shann was born in Kew, Melbourne on 22 November 1917. His father was Frank Shann, a respected teacher and headmaster in Melbourne.
He studied Arts at the University of Melbourne, where he was in residence at Trinity College from 1936 to 1936, winning the Alcock Scholarship.
Shann"s first Commonwealth Public Service positions were at the Bureau of Census and Statistics and the Department of Labour and National Service in 1939. He moved to the Department of External Affairs in Canberra 1946. In 1970, Shann was appointed a Deputy Secretary in the Department of External Affairs, shortly before it was renamed the Department of Foreign Affairs.
In this role until 1973, he worked alongside Departmental secretary Keith Waller to raise the department"s reputation and morale.
During his time in the Deputy Secretary role, he insisted that the department"s staff should go back on regular Public Service classifications and salary levels and the formal separation between diplomatic and administrative foreign affairs staff should be abolished. Shann was appointed Australian Ambassador to Japan in 1973.
Shann died on 4 August 1988, he was 70 years of age.