What Bob Hawke really learnt at Oxford while studying as a Rhodes Scholar

Bob Hawke famously said skolling a yard glass while at Oxford helped “endear” him to Australian voters but it wasn’t the only thing he learnt while attending the prestigious university.

Oxford University has more than 1000 years of history, one of the world’s greatest libraries and some of the globe’s smartest minds.

But Bob Hawke said its beer glasses did more for his political career than all of that combined.

Hawke entered the Guinness Book of Records for drinking a yard glass — two and a half pints or 1.4 litres — in 11 seconds in 1954 while he was studying at Oxford.

Then Prime Minister Bob Hawke admires a pint of ale he pulled himself from one of the traditional pumps at the Dog House pub at Frilford, near Oxford, where he famously once drank a yard glass in record time. Picture: AP

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Hawke, who died this week, aged 89, said on his return to Oxford University in 2003 to receive an honorary doctorate that the yard glass was a defining moment in his life.

“In a political sense, it was one of the big advantages that I got out of my time at Oxford,” he said.

“It endeared me to a large section of the Australian voting population that I had a world beer drinking record.”

University College Oxford mourned his passing on Thursday, saying that it noted his death with “great sadness.”

Bob Hawke skolls a yard glass in front of Gough Whitlam in the 1970s. Picture: Supplied

“It is with great sadness that University College Oxford notes the passing of former Australian prime minister and Labor Party leader Bob Hawke (1953, PPE),” the college said.

“After graduating from the University of Western Australia in 1952, Hawke was awarded a Rhodes scholarship, studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at University. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the College in 1983, the same year in which he was elected prime minster of Australia.

“Our thoughts are with his loved ones and friends at this time.”

Bob Hawke receiving the news of his Rhodes scholarship to Oxford. Picture: Supplied

But while Hawke appeared to be a beer drinking larrikin, he had a steely determination.

Hawke quit drinking in 1980 while he was head of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, before entering parliament and becoming Prime Minister in 1983.

He drank non-alcoholic wines while he was Prime Minister, a job which entails plenty of entertaining at open bars.

But the myth of his famous yard glass also hid the academic achievements of his time at Oxford.

Former Australian prime minister and Rhodes Scholar, Bob Hawke, in Perth in 1952.

He switched to a research degree, where he spent years there poring over industrial relations books, on how the rights of workers were won in the 19th century.

“I don’t think the Rhodes scholarship as such has helped me politically but what came out of being the Rhodes scholar has set the whole path of my career,” he said in the 2003 speech.

“I was extraordinarily fortunate in that here in the library at Rhodes House they had all the original material that I needed and no-one else using it.

“They had the newspapers of the 19th century which had all the stories of the Great Strikes and the move towards and arbitration system, they had the convention debates, they had all the conciliation and arbitration reports and the parliamentary Hansard. So I had all the basic raw material that I needed.”

Bob Hawke and then girlfriend Hazel Masterson on motorbike before he went to England on a Rhodes scholarship in 1951. Picture: Supplied

Hawke returned to Australia to become one of the key figures in the union movement, whose support and power he wielded while in the nation’s top job.

He managed to keep wages in check for businesses, while setting up the superannuation system for workers, which is now financially backing the union movement.

But he did get back on the beers after he left politics, famously skolling a beer at the SCG at least four times.

Tony Abbott (R) and former prime minister Bob Hawke in Sydney during Oxford Business Alumni debate. Picture: Supplied

The first time in 2012 a punter passed him a beer and filmed it on their phone. It then became a tradition with Hawke skolling a beer in front of the crowd of Richies, who were dressed up as the late commentator Richie Benaud in 2014.

Then he was caught again in 2017 and 2018 by Channel 9’s cameras, with Shane Warne gleefully commentating.

Mr Hawke even has a beer named after him, Hawke’s Lager, with some of the profits going to support farmers.

Originally published as What Bob Hawke really learnt at Oxford while studying as a Rhodes Scholar