Stanley Melbourne Bruce was born on 15 April 1883 in Melbourne, and was the youngest of five children. His father, John Munro Bruce, was of Ulster Scottish descent and had emigrated from Ireland to Australia in 1858 at the age of 18. His mother, Mary Ann Henderson, was Irish and had married her cousin John after emigrating to Australia in 1872 at the age of 24.
Born into a wealthy Melbourne family, Bruce studied at the University of Cambridge and spent his early life tending to the importing and exporting business of his late father.
He was admitted to the bar in 1907, but did not enter politics until his election to the Australian House of Representatives in 1918. His leadership in the Australian delegation at the Assembly of the League of Nations in 1921 and his tenure in the office of Commonwealth Treasurer (1921 - 1923) gave him valuable training. Bruce became prime minister and minister for external affairs upon the fall of the government of William Morris Hughes in 1923. In general, he continued the policies of the previous government and attempted to strengthen the consultative machinery of the British Commonwealth. Because of failure to receive adequate preference in British markets at the Imperial Conference of 1923 his government gave special attention to the marketing of Australian products elsewhere. In 1929 he attempted to secure repeal of Australian Commonwealth legislation for industrial arbitration and to return the problem to state jurisdiction. A bitter fight resulted and the ministry fell when Hughes proposed vital amendments to the bill. Bruce was returned to the Australian parliament in 1931 and served as minister without portfolio, 1932 to 1933. He represented Australia at the Ottawa Conference in 1932 and at the World Economic Conference in London in 1933. He was Australian high commissioner in London, 1933 to 1945, and was president of the Montreux Conference called in 1936 to revise the Straits of the Dardanelles question. From 1942 to 1945, he represented Australia in the United Kingdom war cabinet and on the Pacific War Council. During the same period he was minister for Australia to the Netherlands government (in exile) domiciled in London on account of German occupation of the Netherlands. In 1946 and 1947, he served as chairman of the Preparatory Commission on World Food proposals. He was created a viscount in 1947. In 1951 Lord Bruce became the first chancellor of the Australian National University, Canberra. He died in London, England, on August 25, 1967.
In office Bruce pursued an energetic and diverse agenda. He comprehensively overhauled federal government administration and oversaw its transfer to the new capital city of Canberra. He implemented many reforms to the Australian federal system that strengthened the role of the Commonwealth. He established the Commonwealth Peace Officers and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the forerunners of the Australian Federal Police and the CSIRO.
From 1942 to 1945, he represented Australia in the United Kingdom war cabinet and on the Pacific War Council.
By 1912 Bruce was a wealthy businessman and successful barrister, and it was in this year Ethel Dunlop Anderson traveled to England and was reacquainted with Bruce, whom she had known as a child. Aged 32, Ethel was of similar Scottish-Irish ancestry and hailed from a prominent squatter family of Victoria. She shared many of Bruce's interests, especially golf, and his political outlook. They married in July 1913 in a quiet ceremony.
