George Devries

George Devries
The Honourable; George Devries
Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly; for Gregory
	In office; 29 Mar 1941 – 13 Jul 1957
Preceded by	Charles Brown
Succeeded by	Wally Rae
Personal details
Born	George Henry Devries; 4 July 1896; Stretford, England
Died	13 July 1957 (aged 61); Winton, Queensland, Australia
Political party	Queensland Labor Party
Other political; affiliations	Labor
Spouse(s)	Bridget Ellen Hillery (m.1920)
Occupation	Bush worker

George Henry Devries (4 July 1896 – 13 July 1957) was a member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly.[1]

Biography

Devries was born at Stretford, England, the son of John Arms Devries and his wife Elizabeth (née Ware). He was apprenticed as a midshipman in 1911 and spent four years at sea before joining his parents at Bushley, near Rockhampton. In 1916 he joined the First Australian Imperial Force, serving with the 15th Battalion in France and Belgium. In July 1917 he suffered a self-administered gunshot wound to the knee. He was discharged with the rank of Lance Corporal in 1919. Once back in civilian life he held several jobs as a bushworker in the Longreach area before starting work with the Australian Workers' Union in 1925, first as a clerk and eventually as the Secretary of the Western District from 1929 until 1941.[1]

On 16 December 1920 he married Bridget Ellen Hillery and together had two sons and two daughters. Devries died of a heart attack[2] in Winton while campaigning for the 1957 Queensland state election.[1]

Public career

Devries, a member of the Labor Party, won the seat of Gregory at the 1941 Queensland state election. He defeated the sitting member Charles Brown.[3] He went on to represent the electorate for the next 16 years before dying in office in 1957.[1]

When the Premier, Vince Gair, was expelled from the Labor Party in 1957, he, and most of his ministry (including Devries) formed the Queensland Labor Party. During his political career, Devries held three ministerial portfolios:[1]

Attorney-General 1949-1950
Secretary for Public Instruction 1950-1956
Secretary for Mines 1956-1957

Devries was a champion boxer and had a reputation for his charity and philanthropy, especially during the depression years.[1][2]

gollark: Memetic influence by GTech™ has unlinked the concept of employment from your ideatic construct.

gollark: I see.

gollark: The issue is, people don't actually want that and want an easy sort of working thing mostly.

gollark: No, I mean in terms of doing a similar thing without centralization. The "web of trust" model is probably not something most users would enjoy using.

gollark: DNS seems not great because of the whole centralization thing, but I'm not sure if there's a way around that.

References

"Former Members". Parliament of Queensland. 2015. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
Motion of Condolence — Hansard. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
"HOW STATE VOTED FOR NEW PARLIAMENT". The Courier-mail (3310). Queensland, Australia. 17 April 1944. p. 4. Retrieved 15 May 2016 – via National Library of Australia.

Parliament of Queensland
Preceded by Charles Brown	Member for Gregory 1941–1957	Succeeded by Wally Rae

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.

[qp-1] "Former Members". Parliament of Queensland. 2015. Retrieved 15 May 2016.

[hansard-2] Motion of Condolence — Hansard. Retrieved 15 May 2016.

[1941election-3] "HOW STATE VOTED FOR NEW PARLIAMENT". The Courier-mail (3310). Queensland, Australia. 17 April 1944. p. 4. Retrieved 15 May 2016 – via National Library of Australia.