The National Archives has records of governors-general, prime ministers, ministers and other prominent people connected to the Australian Government – see collection of personal records. These records complement those created by government departments and may include official records as well as personal records.

The Archives refers to people who have created records now held by the Archives as 'Commonwealth persons'.

The National Archives holds personal papers of the following prime ministers:

• Joseph Cook
• William Morris Hughes
• Stanley Melbourne Bruce
• James Scullin
• Joseph Lyons
• Earle Page
• Robert Menzies
• John Curtin
• Francis Forde
• Ben Chifley
• Harold Holt
• John McEwen
• John Gorton
• William McMahon
• Gough Whitlam
• Malcolm Fraser
• Bob Hawke
• Paul Keating
• John Howard

Use the research map on the Australia’s Prime Ministers website to locate records of prime ministers held in other archives and collections.

You can find records created by or about ministers, governors-general or other Commonwealth persons, such as departmental secretaries, in our collection database, RecordSearch.

If you want to find information about records created by the person:

1. Use the person’s name as a keyword and select ‘Agencies, persons, organisations’ as the search level, then select Search.
2. Select ‘Display’ and you will see a list of all the government agencies that the person has been associated with and then an entry for the person with a CP (Commonwealth Person) number.
3. Select the CP number to see a primary description for that person. You can also select ‘Person notes’ for biographical information.
4. Select ‘Find series recorded by this person’, then ‘Display’ for a list of series of records created by that person.
5. Selecting the series number gives you more information about each series. At the end of the primary description, you can select ‘Find items in this series’.

If you want to find records about the person:

1. Use the person’s name as a keyword and select ‘Items’ as the search level and select Search. You may prefer to select ‘All’ as the search level to find items, series, and agencies which include the person’s name.
2. Select ‘Display’ and you will see a list of all the items that include that person’s name in their titles. Please note that the search will also find the word used in notes about an item or series.