The fonds consists mainly of textual and photographic records documenting the Menzies family and the personal life and career of Ambassador Arthur R. Menzies. The material includes Menzies family records; James Mellon Menzies school exercise books, agendas, and correspondence 1894-1949; Annie Menzies' travel journal 1920s; correspondence from and to Arthur Menzies 1930-2010. Arthur Menzies' university notes and essays 1935-42, personal and family correspondence, working files, scrapbooks, speeches, conference files, and trip reports and journals. There is a small amount of textual and photographic material relating to Sheila Skelton Menzies. There is a small amount of photographic material relating to the life and career of Oscar D. Skelton., The digital material contains 173 photographs from a book signing event for Arthur Menzies' memoir, Australia and the South Pacific: Letters Home, 1965-1972, in 2009. The event was hosted at Carleton University with the publisher of the book, Penumbra Press. The photographs include group portraits; photographs of the mingling crowd; photographs of the speakers at the event; photographs of Menzies' himself, both portrait-style and as he signed copies of the book; photographs of the press attending the event; and general photographs of those in attendance, including his family.
Menzies, Arthur R., 1916-2010 : Arthur Redpath Menzies was born in China on November 29, 1916 to Dr. James Mellon Menzies and Annie Sedgwick Menzies. His parents were Christian missionaries and his father was an amateur archaeologist who contributed significantly to the scholarly study of the oracle bones from the Shang dynasty. Arthur Menzies was educated at the University of Toronto and Harvard. In 1940 Menzies withdrew from doctoral studies in Far Eastern History and Chinese at Harvard University to join the Department of External Affairs. In 1943 Menzies married Sheila Isabel Halliday Skelton, daughter of Isabel and O.D. Skelton (Under Secretary of State for External Affairs from 1925-1941). Arthur and Sheila Menzies had two children: Kenneth and Norah Menzies. Mr. Menzies was posted as Second Secretary to Havana 1945-46, Head of the Canadian Liaison Mission in Japan 1950-52, High Commissioner to Malaysia 1958-61 and concurrently to Burma 1959-61, Head of the Defence Liaison Division in Ottawa from 1961-65, High Commissioner to Australia 1965-72 and concurrently to Fiji 1970-72, Ambassador to the North Atlantic Council 1972-76, Ambassador to the People's Republic of China 1976-1980 and to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam 1976-79, and Ambassador for Disarmament from 1980-82. Mr. Menzies retired from the Department of External Affairs in 1982. Mr. Menzies was very active during his post-retirement years and was in the process of writing several books during the last decade of his life. In 2009 he published "Australia and the South Pacific, Letters Home, 1965-1972". Mr. Menzies received the Order of Canada in 2001. He died March 4, 2010.
