John Monash

These individual and group projects build on your research of Sir John Monash and encourage a range of creative responses.

The National Portrait Gallery invites you to share your projects online by uploading images, video, audio and text to the Portrait of a Nation: Australian Schools Portrait Project website.

Visit the projects page for more information on how your school can contribute.

Explore the biography and links to find more information about John Monash.

Use a combination of text and images to create a timeline of Monash’s life.

The National Portrait Gallery collection includes paintings photographs, drawings, sculptures, prints, textiles and multimedia portraits.

Experiment with a range of materials to create your own portrait of John Monash.

Create a short performance about John Monash.

This could be a play, a song, an interview or a dramatisation of an event. Make a video of your performance or document your activity in a series of photographs.

Sir John Monash, he fought in Flanders
Fight to keep us free
The wisest man of our commanders
Fight by land and sea
And we’d scorn to flinch from a foe’s attack
Had we the soul of Monash back
To fly his flag on the well-worn track
Fight for victory.

These words are taken from the poem Unforgotten, written by Banjo Paterson in 1940.

Compose your own poem, speech, story or song based on the life of John Monash.

The Canberra suburb of Monash was named after Sir John Monash. The street names in Monash reflect the suburb theme engineers.

What do you know about the place names in your area? Select a town, suburb or street name and write a news article about what you discovered.

Suburbs in Canberra are named after Australia's local and national high achievers, its geography, heritage and history. Each suburb also has a theme by which its streets are named.

Imagine your group has the opportunity to plan a new suburb. Create a map of your suburb with street names based on your chosen theme.