Editing Stanley Bruce (section)

==Later life==
[[File:Coat of Arms of Stanley Melbourne Bruce, 1st Viscount Bruce of Melbourne.svg|thumb|Arms of Viscount Bruce of Melbourne ''Or, a saltire gules cantoned between four mullets sable, on a chief of the second a pale argent charged with a saltire of the third''<ref>{{cite book |title=Debrett's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage |date=1963 |publisher=Kelly's Directories |page=199 |language=en}}</ref>]]
Bruce occupied a range of positions in his later years, sharing his time between the United Kingdom and Australia. He had been Chairman of the Finance Corporation of Industry since 1946 and continued in the role until 1957, providing finance to projects of benefit to the British national economy. Bruce helped establish the program in Australia in 1954 and on a Commonwealth basis in 1956.{{sfn|Cumpston|pp=253–256}} He became the first [[Chancellor (education)|Chancellor]] of the newly established [[Australian National University]] in 1952, and took an active interest in its development, especially as a research centre for the study of Asia and the Pacific.{{sfn|Lee|pp=180–184}} Bruce concluded that Australia's position in the world had changed as a result of World War II, commenting:
<blockquote>[Australia] has become a bridgehead between East and West. It is now vital that Australia should understand the problems of the East, that she should do whatever is in her power to alleviate those problems, and that she should interpret the nature of those problems to the rest of the world.<ref>{{cite news|last=Bruce|first=Stanley|title=Notes from Bruce's Address as Chancellor|newspaper=Chancellor's Papers|date=October 1952|agency=Noel Butlin Archives|location=Australian National University}}</ref></blockquote>
The residential college Bruce Hall was named in his honour, and he remained active in the life of the university until his retirement from the position in 1961.{{sfn|Lee|pp=179–182}} Bruce sat as director on many corporate boards in retirement, notably the [[National Bank of Australia]], [[P&O]] and [[National Mutual]].{{sfn|Cumpston|pp=253–256}} In 1947 he became the first Australian to sit in the [[House of Lords]] ([[John Forrest|Sir John Forrest]] had been granted a peerage but died before it could be invested).<ref>{{cite web|title=Stanley Melbourne Bruce|url=http://www.naa.gov.au/about-us/media/images/bruce/index.aspx|publisher=National Archives of Australia|access-date=21 August 2013|archive-date=27 September 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130927062016/http://www.naa.gov.au/about-us/media/images/bruce/index.aspx|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Having been elevated to the peerage as ''Viscount Bruce of Melbourne'' by long-time colleague Clement Attlee, he would be an active participant in the chamber, attending regularly until his death. Bruce used it as a platform to continue to campaign on international and national social and economic questions, and to promote recognition and representation for Australia within the Commonwealth, though by this time Australian and British interests were becoming increasingly far apart, and the British Empire was rapidly disintegrating.{{sfn|Cumpston|pp=259–262}} He also continued to lobby the British government in these years to increase its commitment to third world development and the FAO. An avid golfer his whole life, Bruce became the first Australian captain of the [[The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews|Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews]] in 1954. From 1948 to 1952 he was President of [[Leander Club]], while continuing to coach rowing at Cambridge University sporadically, and frequently appeared at public events both in Australia and in England.{{sfn|Edwards|pp=448–452}}