Joe Lawson (politician)

Joseph Alexander Lawson (27 July 1893 – 14 August 1973) was an Australian politician, elected as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly.

Lawson was born in Kanyapella, Victoria, the fourth child of James Bell Lawson and Mary Beattie, and educated at Deniliquin public school, following a brief period being educated by his grandmother (Johanne Beattie) in Echuca, Victoria. He left school one or two years later (aged about 9), to work on the family farm, but he was an avid reader, with a great love of the Australian poets, Dickens, Burns and many other writers. In his later years, he could still recite a great many poems from memory, not least The Man from Snowy River. In his early twenties, he bought a mixed farming property, Oakwood, about 6 miles south of Deniliquin. He volunteered for the First AIF in 1915, but despite his fitness he was not accepted, because he had flat feet and two fingers on his left hand joined by a piece of skin. He married Mary Linus Gain on 12 June 1917 and they had three daughters (Mary (known as 'Tib') (dec.), Valda, and Margaret) and two sons (James (dec.) and George (dec.)).

A noted athlete, he played football (Australian Rules Football) and ran as a sprinter in the Victorian Championships and the Stawell Gift. Having been a horse breeder and breaker, he also exhibited prize-winning Clydesdales at the Royal Melbourne Show, as well as having a great interest in horse racing. He became a in Deniliquin in the early 1920s, and was active in the local debating society, the Australian Wheatgrowers Federation, the Pastures Protection Board, the Victorian Producers Co-operative Society, and was a director of the Deniliquin Hospital Board. He was elected as an alderman of Deniliquin Council from 1925 until 1932 and was mayor from 1931 until 1932.

The big issues in the 1930s were the plight of farmers in the Great Depression, particularly soldier-settlers, and the need for development of farming land, in particular through irrigation. Lawson championed the extension of irrigation, and was honored by having the Lawson Syphon (where the Mulwala Canal passes underneath the Edward River) named for him. He also fought to allow farmers in the Murray region to grow rice, which has since become a major crop in the area. He was a very active supporter of schools in his electorate, and a great believer in the importance of education.

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