Warren Marwick
Warren Marwick was an Australian politician and founding director of Wesfarmers.
Early life
Marwick was born on 5 August 1869 in York, Western Australia to Mary Batty Taylor and William Marwick, a farmer. He was educated in York and his religion was Catholic.Beginning in 1886, he worked as a farmer, taking up. Places he farmed in included Yorkrakine and York. He also worked on clearing a road and constructing a telegraph line to Southern Cross, and drove horse-drawn coaches in the Eastern Goldfields from 1892 to 1897. In 1908, he purchased the York Flour Mill. By 1910, he had of land.
Career
Warren Marwick was a founding director of Westfarmers where he served 37 years into its development.Marwick was at various points in the 1900s, 1910s and 1920s a member of the York Road Board and the York Municipal Council.
George Throssell died on 30 August 1910, necessitating a by-election for the East Province of the Western Australian Legislative Council. Marwick contested the by-election, as did Hal Colebatch, a journalist from Northam, and David Morrell, a farmer from Northam. Marwick and Colebatch both supported reform of the Legislative Council property franchise whereas Morrell did not. The election occurred on 26 September 1910, and Marwick won, receiving 714 primary votes comparted to Colebatch's 537 and Morrell's 341. Marwick won all centres except for Northam, which was won by Colebatch.
By 1912, Marwick had become unpopular in Northam due to his opinion on the proposed route for the transcontinental railway line. The most likely route was to be via Midland and Northam, where there was already a line, but there was an alternative proposal via Armadale and Brookton, which is also in the East Province. Marwick chose to support the Armadale-Brookton route, which resulted in his unpopularity within Northam. Colebatch was originally not going to contest the 1912 election, but after a public meeting in Northam decided that a better candidate must contest the East Province, Colebatch became a last-minute candidate. Colebatch supported the transcontinental railway line passing through Northam and a developmental railway being built from Armadale to Brookton. The only other candidate was Thomas Brimage, a former Liberal politician who had joined the Labor Party (Western Australian Branch)|Labor Party] a year earlier. Only Marwick and Colebatch had any chance of winning. Colebatch defeated Marwick, beating him by a small margin in every polling place except for in York. The final result was 1495 votes to Colebatch, 863 votes to Marwick, and 481 votes to Brimage.