Gerald Wild

Gerald Percy Wild MBE AM ED (2 January 1907 – 11 October 1996) was an Australian politician who served as a Liberal Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Western Australia from 1947 to 1965. He was a minister in the governments of Sir Ross McLarty and Sir David Brand, and later served as Agent-General for Western Australia from 1965 to 1971.

Early life Born on 2 January 1907, in Chichester, Sussex, to yeast merchant Edwin Percy and Alice Hilda Wild (née Heather), Wild was educated at Shoreham Grammar School. He emigrated to South Australia in 1923 as one of the Barwell Boys, as part of an assisted migration scheme. He was initially employed as a farm apprentice at Langhorne's Creek and Loxton, and then went to work in the mines at Broken Hill, New South Wales. Wild returned to South Australia in 1930, working at an ice works in Port Adelaide and at a mill in Moonta. In 1936, he went to the Western Australian goldfields, working at mines in Norseman and Kalgoorlie. In November 1939, Wild enlisted in the 2/11th Battalion. He saw service in the Middle East, Greece, and Crete, and was wounded in action in May 1941, gained the MBE (Military Division) in July 1941, and was mentioned in despatches in February 1942. By the end of the war Wild had reached the substantive rank of captain and the temporary rank of major, and was serving as a camp commandant in New Guinea.

Politics and later life Wild had been a member of the United Australia Party in South Australia prior to the war, and on returning to Western Australia joined the newly formed Liberal Party. Setting himself up as a businessman, he purchased property at Kenwick and Forrestdale, farming poultry and also establishing an electrical wholesale business. He stood for the Liberal Party in the seat of Swan at the 1947 state election, and successfully transferred to Dale at the 1950 election, after Swan was abolished in a redistribution. When the second McLarty–Watts government was sworn in on 6 April 1950, Wild was named assistant Minister for Forests (to Ross McLarty), assistant Minister for Mines (to Charles Simpson), and assistant Minister for Housing (to David Brand). In October 1950, he was made a full minister, with responsibility for the forests and housing portfolios (Simpson remained Minister for Mines). He died in Booragoon, a suburb of Perth, on 11 October 1996, aged 89, and was buried at Karrakatta Cemetery. He had married Virginia Mary "Jean" Baxter in 1944.