Thomas Wardle

Sir Thomas Edward Wardle (born 1912 in West Leederville, Western Australia, died in 1997) was a businessman and supermarket proprietor from Western Australia. He was best known for his 'Tom the Cheap' supermarket chain as well as revolutionising grocery shopping in the state.

Wardle was a popular Lord Mayor of Perth from 1967 to 1972.

Wardle's father was Englishman Walter Wardle, who arrived in Western Australia in 1890. Walter worked as a valuer and later as a branch manager at the Rural and Industries Bank of Western Australia. Tom was one of five children of Walter and his wife and the family lived in a number of towns in the South-West of the state. He attended schools at Albany, Katanning and Tambellup and in Perth at Thomas Street School and Perth Boys School.

His mother died while he was in high school and in 1927 at the age of 15 Wardle started his working career at the National Bank. He eventually tired of the routine of clerical work and left four years later in 1931 to work as a farm labourer during the Great Depression. During this time a romance with his sister's Swedish-born friend Hulda Olson blossomed and after a two-year engagement they were married on 31 August 1940. Wardle joined the Citizens Military Force and in 1942 enlisted for overseas service, leaving his wife and newly born daughter Dianne behind with his parents-in-law. He was discharged from the army in early 1946 as a Staff Sergeant after having seen action against the Japanese in an anti-aircraft unit in New Guinea and Malaya.

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