Jim Sparkes
Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly (1889-1974)
Sir Walter Beresford James Gordon Sparkes (22 April 1889 – 15 June 1974) was a Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly.
Early life
Sparkes was born at Dubbo, New South Wales in 1889 to James Sparkes and his wife Mary Ann (née Yates). He was educated at Croydon Park Public School and St Joseph's College, Hunters Hill before moving to Queensland in 1910.
By 1912 he had purchased Lyndley Hereford Stud at Jandowae, one of the oldest and best known Hereford studs in Australia. Sparkes expanded the stud from its original 3,000 acres to 16,000 acres by acquiring adjoining properties. Over the years he went on to acquire many properties across the southern part of the state.
Politics
Sparkes was elected as a councillor to the Wambo Shire Council in 1916 and eventually became its chairman between 1922–31 and 1937–52. He entered the state parliament in 1932, winning Dalby for the Country and Progressive National Party but did not seek re-election in 1935. Representing the Country Party in 1941, Sparkes won the seat of Aubigny, holding it for 19 years until his defeat in 1960 by Queensland Labor Party candidate, Les Diplock. During this period he was the Opposition whip from 1950 till 1957.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jim Sparkes” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.