John Nicholas Pedler (25 January 1870 – 10 August 1942) was an Australian politician. He was a member of the

South Australian House of Assembly The House of Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. The other is the Legislative Council. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Adelaide. Overview The House of Assembly was creat ...

from 1918 to 1938, representing the electorate of

Wallaroo Wallaroo is a common name for several species of moderately large macropods, intermediate in size between the kangaroos and the wallabies. The word "wallaroo" is from the Dharug ''walaru'', and not a portmanteau of the words "kangaroo" and "wal ...

. Pedler was born at

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...

, and educated at the public school at

Paskeville Paskeville is a town on South Australia's Yorke Peninsula. It is located approximately 20 km east of Kadina on the Copper Coast Highway towards Adelaide. At the , Paskeville had a population of 178. The town's district is administratively ...

. He was raised on the family farm, "Gum Farm", three miles from Kadina, on which he helped until he was 18. Pedler was a contractor and carter thereafter until 1900, when he inherited the farm and returned to run the property, becoming a successful wheat grower. He became involved in local politics, serving on the Kadina District Council for about thirty years, eventually becoming its chairman, and serving as president of the Kadina branch of the Labor Party. He also served as chairman of the local Agricultural Bureau, President of the Kadina Technical School Council and Vice-President of the Kadina Branch of the

Australian Workers Union The Australian Workers' Union (AWU) is one of Australia's largest and oldest trade unions. It traces its origins to unions founded in the pastoral and mining industries in the 1880s and currently has approximately 80,000 members. It has exerci ...

. Pedler was elected to the House of Assembly for the Labor Party at the 1918 state election, along with future Premier Robert Richards, who Pedler would remain associated with throughout his career. Pedler and Richards defeated two ex-Labor defectors, former Premier

John Verran John Verran (9 July 1856 – 7 June 1932) was an Australian politician and trade unionist. He served as premier of South Australia from 1910 to 1912, the second member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) to hold the position. Verran was b ...

and John Frederick Herbert, who had been expelled from the Labor Party in the 1917 Labor split and had contested the election for the splinter National Party. He was re-elected in 1921, 1924, 1927 and 1930. In 1931, Pedler was expelled from the Labor Party along with Premier

Lionel Hill Lionel Laughton Hill (14 May 1881 – 19 March 1963) was an Australian politician who served as the thirtieth Premier of South Australia, representing the South Australian Branch of the Australian Labor Party. Early life Born in Adelaide, So ...

and his Cabinet, when the party split over the Hill Cabinet's support for the

Premiers' Plan The Premiers' Plan was a deflationary economic policy agreed by a meeting of the Premiers of the Australian states in June 1931 to combat the Great Depression in Australia that sparked the 1931 Labor split. Background The Great Depressio ...

. The expelled MPs reconstituted as the splinter

Parliamentary Labor Party The Parliamentary Labor Party (also known as the Premiers' Plan Labor Party or Ministerial Labor Party) was a political party active in South Australia from August 1931 until June 1934. The party came into existence as a result of intense dispu ...

and contested the 1933 election under that banner, but were resoundingly defeated, Pedler and Richards being among their only MPs to be re-elected. Pedler was readmitted to the Labor Party in 1934 along with the remaining PLP MPs. In 1938, the state abolished multi-member districts for the House of Assembly, and established single-member electorates instead. Pedler lost a Labor preselection vote for the new single-member seat of Wallaroo to Richards, and opted to retire from parliament. Pedler died suddenly in 1942. He was still a member of the Kadina Council at the time of his death.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pedler, John Nicholas 1870 births 1942 deaths Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of South Australia Members of the South Australian House of Assembly