Joseph Gardiner

Joseph Peter Gardiner (4 July 1886 – 23 January 1965) was the Labor Party member for the Western Australian Legislative Assembly seat of Roebourne from 1911 to 1915. His sudden and still unexplained departure from Western Australia in 1915 was an important factor in the collapse of John Scaddan's Labor government. Early life Joseph Peter Gardiner was born in Adelaide on 4 July 1886. He was educated at the Christian Brothers College in that city, and was then apprenticed to his bootmaker father in West Perth. Later he went to the Pilbara region, where he traded on the coast between Cossack and Broome. He was secretary of the Miners' Union at Whim Creek, and from 1910 to 1912 was manager of the Weld Hotel in Cossack. Political career On 31 October 1911, Gardiner was elected to the Western Australian Legislative Assembly seat of Roebourne. In 1913 and 1914 he lived in West Perth, and was secretary of the Bootmakers' Union.