Arthur Warner

Sir Arthur George Warner (31 July 1899 – 3 April 1966) was an English-born Australian businessman and politician.

He was born in London to manager Arthur Warner and Emily Cheeseman. He attended Sir George Monoux Grammar School and worked as a telephone mechanic before studying science at the University of London. During World War I he served in the Royal Navy and the Royal Flying Corps, and following the war he migrated to Australia and became a soldier settler in Scottsdale in Tasmania. He soon moved to Melbourne and, having qualified by correspondence, worked as an accountant. On 14 August 1920, he married Ethel Wakefield, with whom he had two sons.

From 1926, he ran the Radio Corporation which, by 1934, was the largest radio manufacturing firm in the country. In 1934, he applied for the first Australian television licence. In 1938, he founded Electronic Industries Ltd, which, as the manufacturer of the Astor range of products, dominated Australia's radio market in the 1930s.

In 1946, he was elected to the Victorian Legislative Council for Higinbotham Province,

He is the father of Peter Warner, the captain of a fishing boat who, in 1966, rescued six Tongan castaways on ʻAta Island, and later went on to win the line honours three times in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race.