David Ernest Henshaw (20 December 1931 – 2 April 2008) was an Australian politician. He was born in

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

to Norman Henshaw, a taxi driver and son of politician Ernest Henshaw, and Grace, ''née'' Ardagh. He attended Wesley College and then the

University of Western Australia The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany, Western Australia, Albany an ...

, where he received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

(Honours). He then moved to

Geelong Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River, ...

, where he became chief research scientist of the Textile Industry Division of

CSIRO The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentar ...

from 1958 to 1982. In 1970 he was appointed a

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

for the self-twist wool spinning machine he had developed, and he was joint winner of the Britannica Australia award for science in 1972. He joined the Labor Party in 1972, and was a South Barwon City councillor from 1978 to 1983. Henshaw was an executive member of the Corangamite federal electorate assembly from 1973 to 1982 and was also president and secretary of the Labor Party's Belmont branch. He sat on the party's conservation and environment policy committee from 1976 to 1982 (as chair from 1978). In 1982 he was elected to the

Victorian Legislative Council The Victorian Legislative Council (VLC) is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria, Australia, the lower house being the Legislative Assembly. Both houses sit at Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The Legislative Co ...

as member for

, serving until his retirement in 1996. He resumed his membership of the conservation and environment committee, serving until 2003. Henshaw died in 2008.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Henshaw, David 1931 births 2008 deaths Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Victoria Members of the Victorian Legislative Council Australian Members of the Order of the British Empire 20th-century Australian politicians Victoria (state) local councillors