Lyall Howard

Lyall Falconer Howard (2 May 1896 – 30 November 1955) was an Australian businessman and World War I veteran who was the father of the former Australian prime minister John Howard and academic Bob Howard. He was born and raised near Maclean in the Clarence River region of northern New South Wales. His hand-written war diary penned on the battlefields of the Western Front in 1916 is used by historians to retrace the experiences of Australian soldiers in World War I.

World War I The diggers of the 3rd Pioneer Battalion prepare to board HMAT Wandilla at Port Melbourne, bound for the Western Front. 6 June 1916 During World War I, Howard was known as a proud patriot. On 16 January 1916, at age 19, he signed up to the Australian Imperial Force. As regimental number 802, he was assigned to the 3rd Pioneer Battalion, earning a wage of eight shillings per day.

In the book, The Great War, author Les Carlyon details the experiences of Howard on the front line, captured by the handwritten notes in Lyall's war diary. One laconic entry underscored the horrors the soldiers faced: "Will wounded and dies". Will was Howard's best friend. Walter's battalion was moving in for an attack on Péronne.

An entry in Howard's diary, dated 30 August 1918, simply reads: "Met dad at Cléry." The gassing caused chronic bronchitis and skin rashes which would continue to plague him after the war.

In 1925, he married an office worker, Mona Kell. Their first son, Walter (junior), was born in 1926, followed by Stanley (1929), Robert (Bob) (1936), and the youngest, John Howard in 1939.

By the outbreak of World War II, Howard was strongly against appeasement, and an admirer of Winston Churchill. The turmoil of the 1949 Australian coal strike and subsequent petrol rationing caused difficulties for the two Howard family petrol businesses, a dispute which ended when the army was sent in to defeat the unions. Both Lyall and Mona Howard became enthusiastic supporters of the newly created Liberal Party of Australia, and celebrated the election night of 1949 which brought Prime Minister Robert Menzies to power, defeating the Labor government of Ben Chifley. When the election results were declared, Lyall built a bonfire in the backyard to burn his petrol rationing card. He later became a paid-up member of the Liberal Party.

According to a Sydney Morning Herald report published on 7 January 1989, there were some suspicions in the Howard family that Howard was a member of the New Guard, a fascist paramilitary organisation active in the 1930s which stood for "unswerving loyalty to the Throne; all for the British Empire; sane and honourable government throughout Australia; suppression of any disloyal and immoral elements in government, industrial and social circles; abolition of machine politics, and maintenance of the full liberty of the individual." Howard's son Walter Howard disputes the claim. However, when interviewed by author Peter van Onselen about his father's involvement in the New Guard, another son, Bob, an academic and a member of the Australian Labor Party recalls Howard defending New Guard activities, and said his father probably was a member of the New Guard.

Howard never recovered from the gassing on the battlefields of World War I. He died of chronic bronchitis in 1955, at the age of 59. John Howard, who was age 16 at the time, remembers: "You never think at that age that your father was going to die. I'd always hoped that my father would be proud of me ... My mother lived to see me become treasurer and go into politics, came to my first Budget, had dinner at The Lodge. My dad, my dad didn't, unfortunately."