Prime Ministers Avenue

The Prime Ministers Avenue is a collection of busts of the Prime Ministers of Australia, located at the Ballarat Botanical Gardens in Ballarat, Victoria. The busts are displayed as bronze portraits mounted on polished granite pedestals. It attracts thousands of visitors annually.The 28th Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, was the most recent Prime Minister to be added to the Avenue. He attended the unveiling on 5 June 2017.HistoryRichard Crouch, the original donor of the first six busts, was born in Ballarat in 1868. He was MP for Corio representing the Protectionist Party 1901–1909 and the Commonwealth Liberal Party 1909–1910, and was at the time the youngest member of the House of Representatives. He also served as MP for Corangamite under the Labor Party 1929–1931.The first six busts were unveiled on 2 March 1940 by the Governor of Victoria, Winston Dugan. Crouch also bequeathed now-used funds for maintaining the project. It is claimed that Crouch's motivation for the collection was "his patronage and love of fine arts which he supported and endowed in many other ways and the influence of two parliamentary terms under the statesmen Barton, Deakin, Watson, Fisher and Scullin prompted him to return to Ballarat something of what it had given him".