Visitors to the current exhibition at the Manly Art Gallery on the history of the Royal Far West Hospital may have seen that Prime Minister Robert Menzies visited Manly on 14th March 1964 to open the George Moncrieff Barron building at the Far West Hospital. It rained heavily on the day, and he made his speech from under an umbrella held over him by Norman Drummond, whose brother, Reverend Stanley Drummond, had founded the Far West scheme. Sir Robert gave a quick speech, saying “I don’t want to miss my bus – I declare this building open.” Afterwards he was given a civic reception, and it was stated at the time that this was the first time a Prime Minister had visited Manly.
However, it wasn't. PM Joseph Lyons had visited the Far West Hospital in September 1933. And Earle Page, later to be the caretaker Prime Minister in 1939, visited Manly in 1923 with a delegation of MPs in response to concerns about the Quarantine Station. In 1908, before he became PM, William Hughes came to Manly, with a group of MPs looking at how best to develop North Head; and Edmund Barton lived in Manly for a year or two before becoming Australia’s first Prime Minister. So Manly has had its share of Prime Ministerial notice.