John Harris (Victorian politician)
Sir John Richards Harris was an Australian politician. A medical officer in early life, he is also noted as the first producer of sherry in Australia.
Life
He was born in Chiltern to miner Thomas Henry Harris and Mary Richards Hollow. He attended Grenville College in Ballarat and then the University of Melbourne. From 1891 to 1892, he was the resident medical officer at Melbourne Hospital and, from 1892, was based in Rutherglen.Harris served with the Australian Flying Corps during World War I. At Rutherglen he had become a viticulturist, producing the first sherry in Australia in 1912.
In 1920, Harris won a by-election in the North Eastern Province of the Victorian Legislative Council, endorsed by the Victorian Farmers' Union, which soon became the Country Party. From 2 July 1925 to 20 May 1927, he was a minister without portfolio. He was expelled from the parliamentary Country Party in 1934 after refusing to sign the pledge required on the party's nomination form, but was soon readmitted. He kept his leadership of the Country Party in the Council, which he had held since 1928 and retained until 1942.
Harris was Minister of Public Instruction and Public Health from 1935 to 1942. Appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1937, he also served as chairman of the Council of Agricultural Education and the State Emergency Council. Harris was defeated in the 1946 Victorian Legislative Council election and died later that year in Rutherglen.