Roland Wilson (economist) explained

Sir Roland Wilson
Office1:Secretary of the Department of Labour and National Service
Term Start1:14 November 1940
Term End1:7 March 1946
Office2:Secretary of the Department of the Treasury
Term Start2:1 April 1951
Term End2:27 October 1966
Office3:Commonwealth Statistician
Term Start3:1936-1940
Term End3:1946- 1951
Predecessor3:Edward Tannock McPhee
Birth Date:7 April 1904
Birth Place:Ulverstone, Tasmania, Australia
Death Place:Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Occupation:Public servant
Nationality:Australian

Sir Roland Wilson (7 April 190425 October 1996) was a senior Australian public servant and economist.

Life and career

Wilson was born in Ulverstone, Tasmania on 7 April 1904. He studied at Devonport High School, where he won a scholarship to take an economics course at the University of Tasmania. He became a Rhodes Scholar in 1925, the first Tasmanian from a state school to win the scholarship. The Rhodes Scholarship took him to the University of Oxford where he studied for the degree of doctor of philosophy.

Wilson became Commonwealth Statistician in 1936.

Wilson was appointed Secretary of the Department of Labour and National Service as a war-time secondment in 1940.

In 1946, after World War II, Wilson resumed his position as Commonwealth Statistician until the Menzies government made him Secretary of the Department of the Treasury in 1951.

On leaving Treasury in 1966, Wilson was the Chairman of Qantas until 1972, and the Chairman of the Commonwealth Bank until 1975.

Awards and honours

He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1941[1] and knighted in 1955.

The Sir Roland Wilson Building at the Australian National University is named after Wilson, in recognition of his significant contribution to public policy and administration in Australia and in many international forums.

The Sir Roland Wilson Foundation at the Australian National University was established by a donation from the Wilson family in 1998, and offers scholarships to Australian public servants to undertake postgraduate studies.

Notes and References

  1. https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/1064875 It's an Honour: CBE