Robert Towers Gillies (187626 July 1941) was an

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Au ...

politician. He was born on the

Paterson River Paterson River, a perennial river that is part of the Hunter River catchment, is located in the Hunter and Mid North Coast regions of New South Wales, Australia. Course and features Paterson River rises in the Barrington Tops National Park, we ...

to farmers Dugald and Mary Gillies. He attended public school at

Pimlico Pimlico () is an area of Central London in the City of Westminster, built as a southern extension to neighbouring Belgravia. It is known for its garden squares and distinctive Regency architecture. Pimlico is demarcated to the north by London V ...

and worked as a blacksmith. Around 1903 he married Mabel Elsie McKeever, with whom he had six children. He farmed at Cudgera from around 1908, before relocating to

Tweed Heads Tweed Heads is a town in New South Wales. It is located on the Tweed River in north-eastern New South Wales, Australia, in Tweed Shire, next to the border with Queensland and adjacent to its "twin town" of Coolangatta, which is a suburb of the ...

around 1922, where he became a contributor to the ''Tweed Daily'' and a councillor from 1922 to 1925. In 1925 he was elected to the

New South Wales Legislative Assembly The New South Wales Legislative Assembly is the lower of the two houses of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The upper house is the New South Wales Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament Ho ...

as one of the

Labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

members for

Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...

, but he was expelled in 1927 for his opposition to Jack Lang. He later joined the right-wing

All for Australia League The All for Australia League (AFAL) was an Australian political movement during the Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depressi ...

. After leaving politics he became a commercial agent in Fairfield and then at Lismore before returning to Tweed Heads around 1935. Gillies died at Tweed Heads in 1941.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gillies, Robert 1876 births 1941 deaths Independent members of the Parliament of New South Wales Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly New South Wales local councillors Australian journalists Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of New South Wales