Richard Casey (29 August 1890-17 June 1976) was Governor-General of Australia from 7 May 1965 to 30 April 1969, succeeding William Sidney and preceding Paul Hasluck. He was a member of the United Australia Party and the Liberal Party of Australia.
Biography[]
Richard Casey was born in Brisbane, Australia on 29 August 1890, and he was educated at the Universities of Melbourne and Cambridge. He served in ANZAC during World War I at the Battle of Gallipoli and in France, and he returned to Melbourne to take up his father's business interests in 1919, befriending Stanley Bruce and becoming his political agent in 1924 as Australia's liaison officer in London. He returned to Australia in 1931 and was elected to the House of Representatives for the United Australia Party, becoming Joseph Lyons' adviser on international affairs and becoming the Australian representative to the United States in 1940, the first Australian representative to a country outside the Commonwealth. He became a member of the British War Cabinet from 1942, and he became Governor of Bengal in 1944. Returning to Australian politics in 1946, he became federal president of the Liberal Party of Australia in 1947, entering Parliament in 1949. As Minister for External Affairs from 1951 to 1960, he focused Australian foreign policy on its hitherto neglected relations with its Asian neighbors. He accepted the peerage as Baron Casey of Berwick and the City of Westminster in 1960, and, in 1965, he became the first Asutralian appointed as Governor-General by a non-Labor Party government. He served as Governor-General until 1969, and he died in 1976.