A Boy From Boulder – ‘Honest John’

The Goldfields has the distinction of being the birthplace of a WA Premier. John Trezise Tonkin (known as ‘Honest John”), premier from October 1971 to April 1974, was born at Boulder on the 2nd February 1902 and today (22 April 1989) lays claim to being one of the few WA Labor premiers to be born in the state. He was the son of John Tresize TONKIN and Julia nee CARRIGAN. He had a sister born in 1904, Gladys Charlotte Irene TONKIN. The family lived on the corner of Wilson and Burt Streets Boulder.

John Trezise Tonkin – Photo SLWA

Educated at Boulder Central and the Eastern Goldfields Senior High Schools, Mr Tonkin – who now lives in Perth – left the Goldfields in 1921 to attend the Claremont Teachers Training College in Perth. He established a branch of the Australian Labor Party in 1923 and in 1927 and 1930 made two unsuccessful attempts to enter parliament. He contested and won the seat of North Fremantle in 1933 and held several ministerial portfolios in the Wilcock and Wise governments.

In 1926 in West Perth, WA, he married Rosalie Mary Maud CLEGHORN, the couple had three children. After the death of Rosalie, he married Winifred Joan WHEAT in 1971.

After electoral boundaries were changed in 1950, Mr. Tonkin was elected to Melville and three years later, when Labor won office, he was appointed Minister for Education, Works, and Water Supplies. He was appointed Deputy Premier in December 1955 and, after the resignation of A.R.G. Hawke in 1967, was unanimously elected leader of his party and Leader of the Opposition. Mr Tonkin led the Labor Party to victory in 1971.
The Tonkin Government was noted for its social reform, establishing the Department of Community Welfare, the Aboriginal Lands Trust, and the Environmental Protection Council.
It also had the distinction of being the first in Australia to create the office of Parliamentary Commissioner for Grievances or ombudsman. The Court Liberal party ousted Labor in 1974 and Mr. Tonkin continued to lead the party in opposition until 1977 when he retired.

NOTE:- John Trezise Tonkin was to pass away on the 20th of October 1995, at the great age of 93 years. He was cremated and his ashes were interred at the Fremantle Cemetery where there is a memorial bench to mark the place. Tonkin Highway and the John Tonkin College in Mandurah are named after him.
After his first wife and daughter died of cancer, Tonkin campaigned for many years for radio-wave therapy treatments for cancer sufferers; and he set up a treatment clinic run by cancer surgeon John Holt in Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth. At the time he became Premier and married his second wife in the early 1970s, he was already renowned for his tireless support of the Tronado anti-cancer machine.

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Moya Sharp

Owner at Outback Family History

My name is Moya Sharp, I live in Kalgoorlie Western Australia and have worked most of my adult life in the history/museum industry. I have been passionate about history for as long as I can remember and in particular the history of my adopted home the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. Through my website I am committed to providing as many records and photographs free to any one who is interested in the family and local history of the region.

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