People Australia

Bert Hawke, n.d.

Albert Redvers George (Bert) Hawke (1900-1986) solicitor’s clerk, parliamentarian and premier

Birth: 3 December 1900 at Kapunda, South Australia, son of native-born parents James Renfrey Hawke (1862-1930), miner, and Elizabeth Ann Blinman, née Pascoe (1861-1945). Marriage: 25 September 1923 at the Holder Memorial Methodist Church, West Adelaide, to Mabel Eveline Crafter (1888-1967), a clerk, born in Adelaide. They had one daughter. Death: 14 February 1986, in St Andrews Hospital, at Adelaide, SA. Religion: Baptist or Methodist. 

• Educated at Kapunda Model Primary School to 1914, he was apprenticed to a clockmaker-jeweller.
• After moving to Peterborough he was employed at Peterborough Co-operative grocery store about 1918. Then became a clerk in office of lawyer;
• Bert had joined the Australian Labor Party in Kapunda in 1916. He was president of the Peterborough branch of the party in the early 1920s
• He was Labor member of the State House of Assembly for Burra Burra from 1924 until he lost the election in 1927. After leaving parliament he was employed by SA Harbours Department in 1927-1928.
• Hawke moved to Western Australia in 1928. He was country organiser, ALP, WA, in 1928-1933 and wrote a Labor column in the West Australian Daily News. He undertook reorganisation of Timber Workers’ Union in the 1930s.
• He was elected member of the Legislative Assembly for the State seat of Northam in 1933, dislodging the premie, Sir James Mitchell, KCMG, who had held the seat for twenty-eight years.
• Hawke was minister for employment and labour in 1936-1939, for labour and industrial development 1939-1943, and for public works, water supplies and industrial development 1943-1947. He was deputy leader of the Opposition in 1947-1951 and leader of the opposition in 1951-1953.
• He was premier of Western Australia, treasurer, minister for industrial development and minister for child welfare in 1953-1959 and leader of the Opposition in 1959-1966. He did not renominate for Northam at the general election in 1968.
• In retirement he returned to South Australis in 1977.
• Cause of death: ischaemic cardio myopathy (months) and coronary artery disease (years).
• Bob Hawke, prime minister of Australia, was his nephew. 

Sources
Who’s Who in Australia; Thirty Years’ Record; S. Cockburn, The Patriarchs (Adelaide, 1983); News (Adelaide), 10 October 1974; G.S. Reid and M.R. Oliver, The Premiers of Western Australia (Nedlands, 1982); David Black and Geoffrey Bolton, Biographical register of members of the parliament of Western Australia Volume 2 1930-2010 (Perth, 2010); Westralian Worker, 10 February 1933, p 3.