He served in the Gallipoli Campaign and on the Western Front, winning the Military Cross and ending the war with the rank of major; he was later promoted to brigadier in the reserve of officers.

His maternal grandfather Henry Austin was the chairman of the Perpetual Trustee Company, which was founded by his forebear John Rendell Street.

He passed his senior examinations in December 1912 and enrolled in law at the University of Sydney,[2] initially studying towards a Bachelor of Arts degree.

[2] In August 1914, following the outbreak of the First World War, Street enlisted as a private in the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force.

Street received a "slight" wound to the head and was evacuated back to Egypt, where he was promoted to full lieutenant with effect from 26 April.

He returned a month later and led a mission on 4 June to eliminate an Ottoman machine-gun, which ended in him "unexpectedly stumbling into Turkish troops in a supposedly unoccupied 'sniper’s trench'".

While Elliott described Street as "a very decent boy" and "a very lovable lad", he regarded him as constantly needing direction and overinvolved with recreational activities.

Street was finally transferred away from Elliott's staff in April 1918 following an incident in which a poorly worded order placed three battalions in danger.

Street was shot in the wrist by a machine gun bullet in September 1918, and after a period of sick leave joined the Demobilisation and Repatriation Branch in London.

[9] Three of his cousins were killed in the war,[8] and his younger brother Anthony died in the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic while on active duty.

[2] Street and his wife returned to Australia in 1920 and settled on a property near Lismore in the Western District of Victoria, which had been part of his father-in-law's estate.

He became Minister of Defence in November 1938 and played a major role in the expansion of the military and munitions production prior to the outbreak of the Second World War and pushed the National Registration Act (1939) through parliament despite strong opposition.