Prime_Ministers_Avenue--Andrew_Fisher

The Prime Ministers Avenue is a collection of busts of the first twenty-nine prime ministers of Australia. They are lined along an avenue of horse chestnuts at the Ballarat Botanical Gardens, bronze casts mounted on polished granite pedestals.
The politician Richard Crouch commissioned Wallace Anderson to create the first twelve busts in 1939; he pledged £1000 to maintain the Avenue in perpetuity. The Governor of Victoria, Winston Dugan, unveiled the first six busts on 2 March 1940. Anderson created the first twelve from 1939 to 1943 and was later commissioned for the thirteenth and fourteenth. Ken Palmer, Victor Greenhalgh, Peter Nicholson, and Linda Klarfeld were later sculptors for the Avenue. After the Crouch fund was exhausted in 2014 with Julia Gillard's bust, the Ballarat City Council has been financing the Avenue. The council struggled to keep the Avenue up to date because of the rapid turnover of prime ministers in the 2010s.