Reginald Thomas Pollard (31 October 1894 – 24 August 1981) was an Australian politician. He was a member of the

Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms t ...

(ALP) and served in the

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

(1924–1932) and

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

(1937–1966). He was Minister for Commerce and Agriculture (1946–1949) in the Chifley Government.

Early life

Pollard was born in

Castlemaine, Victoria Castlemaine ( , non-locally also ) is a small city in Victoria, Australia, in the Goldfields region about 120 kilometres (75 miles) northwest by road from Melbourne and about 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the major provincial centre of Be ...

and educated at Woodend State School, West Melbourne Technical School and Workingmen's College. He worked as an agricultural labourer near

Werribee Werribee is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, south-west of Melbourne's Melbourne City Centre, Central Business District, located within the City of Wyndham Local government areas of Victoria, local government a ...

and from 1912 to 1915 as a fitter in Melbourne. During World War I he served in the

first Australian Imperial Force The First Australian Imperial Force (1st AIF) was the main expeditionary force of the Australian Army during the First World War. It was formed as the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) following Britain's declaration of war on Germany on 15 Au ...

the 6th Battalion from October 1915 in

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and

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and was promoted to Second Lieutenant. He was wounded in 1918 and invalidated home. He became a soldier settler in Woodend as a dairy farmer. He married Elsie Bowman Hodges in 1922 and they had two sons.

State politics

Pollard founded the Woodend branch of the

. He was elected to the

seat of Dalhousie in a 1924 by-election, and represented the seat of Bulla and Dalhousie from 1927 until his defeat in the 1932 election. He was assistant Minister of Agriculture from December 1929 to May 1932. He ran unsuccessfully for the federal seat of

Gippsland Gippsland is a rural region that makes up the southeastern part of Victoria, Australia, mostly comprising the coastal plains to the rainward (southern) side of the Victorian Alps (the southernmost section of the Great Dividing Range). It cove ...

at the 1934 election and the state seat of Castlemaine and Kyneton in 1935.

Federal politics

Pollard was elected to the

Australian House of Representatives The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Senate. Its composition and powers are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia. The term of members o ...

seat of Ballaarat at the 1937 election and held it until the 1949 election, when he was elected as the member for Lalor. He was appointed Minister for Commerce and Agriculture in the second Chifley Ministry in November 1946, but lost office with the defeat of the Chifley government at the 1949 election. As Minister, he introduced a scheme to stabilise the price of wheat paid to farmers. He was defeated in Lalor at the 1966 election. He died in Gisborne.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pollard, Reginald Thomas Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Australia Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Ballarat Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Lalor Members of the Australian House of Representatives Members of the Cabinet of Australia Members of the Victorian Legislative Assembly 1894 births 1981 deaths 20th-century Australian politicians People from Castlemaine, Victoria Australian military personnel of World War I