The McCusker family is to provide more than $100,000 a year to Australia’s version of the global Rhodes Scholarship, with a women’s health expert becoming their first recipient.
The McCusker family has committed more than $100,000 a year to Australia’s version of the global Rhodes Scholarship, with a women’s health expert becoming their first recipient.
Imogen Thomson, an obstetrics and gynaecology doctor committed to improving women’s health through clinical care, research, and public health, was the named this week as the inaugural Sir James McCusker John Monash Scholar.
Dr Thomson, from NSW, was among 18 recipients of scholarships managed by the General Sir John Monash Foundation, sharing $3.2 million to fund postgraduate study and research.
The John Monash Foundation seeks to fund further studies at world leading universities, much like the more than 120-year-old Rhodes Trust which has funded outstanding academic achievers from a huge number of countries to further their studies at Oxford.
Former WA Governor Malcolm McCusker said the prompt to support the scholarship program was reading about the John Monash Foundation, named after the engineer and military leader who led the most successful Australian campaigns on the Western Front during the First World War.
“You have to make sure philanthropy goes to the right places,” Mr McCusker said.
“The selection process is very important,” he said of the scholarship program.
“They have a very impressive panel.”
Mr McCusker said there was no stipulation for the recipient to have any connection with WA, but he did hope that was a possibility as well as the possibility that more Western Australians would support additional scholarships.
There were already some links to the John Monash program scholarships named after former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, former Premier Geoff Gallop and Perth-based conglomerate Wesfarmers.
At least one of the John Monash recipients for 2026 has strong WA links, with University of Western Australia quantum physics student Josh Snow, already a Fogarty Scholar backed by WA's Fogarty Foundation, winning the Geoff Gallop scholarship and planning to study at Stanford University in the US.
The McCusker family, named the 51st richest in Western Australia and one of the state’s most significant philanthropic benefactors, have committed around $3 million to fund the scholarship over the longer term, although their initial contribution was $115,000.
The scholarships, of which 300 have been provided for since launched in 2004, offer $100,000 per year for up to three years.
The late Sir James McCusker co-founded Town & Country Building Society in 1964 with his lawyer son Malcolm, growing the lending and related land development business substantially until they sold to banking giant ANZ in the early 1990s.
The family’s estimated $430 million fortune would likely be several times larger if not for their generosity through the McCusker Charitable Foundation which donated more than $20 million to worthy causes for the year June 30 2024.
The foundation had net assets of almost $400 million at the end of the 2023-24 financial year, a sum that is not included in the family’s asset base when it comes to estimating their overall wealth.
Mr McCusker said it was pleasing to see a medical researcher win the inaugural Sir James McCusker scholarship, as his father was big proponent of such activity, especially into Alzheimer’s disease due to the suffering of his wife Mary.
“The foundation I established and run is definitely orientated to medical research,” Mr McCusker said.
“Having said that I have not stipulated that the scholarship holder is to come from medical research.”
The McCuskers fund a variety of scholarships, including to Perth Modern School, among their educational work.
In the 2023-24 financial year, one of the McCusker Foundation's biggest donations was $3 million to fund the University of WA's launch of a new endowed chair with the appointment of former WA Commissioner for Children and Young People Michelle Scott as the inaugural McCusker Chair in Citizenship.
The foundation helped establish the McCusker Centre for Citizenship at the university with a $5 million donation about 10 years ago.
Mr McCusker said that he hoped that his family's giving would influence others to do the same.
"My family and I, for quite a number of years, believed in doing it by stealth," he said.
"But in the end we were persuaded that by going public it would encourage others.
"We are not looking for kudos."
