  By almost any measure, the Parkes Radio Telescope is the most successful
scientific instrument ever built in Australia. The telescope is unsurpassed in
terms of the number of astronomers, both national and international, who have
used the instrument, the number of research papers that have flowed from their
research, and the sheer longevity of its operation (now over fifty years). The
original planners and builders could not have envisaged that the telescope
would have such an extraordinarily long and productive future. From the start,
it was an international project by CSIRO that in the 1950s launched Australia
into the world of `big science'. Partly funded by the US Carnegie and
Rockefeller foundations, it was designed in England by Freeman Fox & Partners,
and built by the German firm MAN. This article will give an overview of the
origins of the idea for the telescope and the funding, planning and
construction of the Parkes dish over the period 1954 to 1961.
