Parliamentary Service |
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State
Electorates
- MLA Beverley 16 August 1910 (by-election)–3 October 1911; Pingelly 3 October 1911–21 October 1914
- Contested North-East Coolgardie 4 May 1897, Pingelly 4 November 1914
Commonwealth
Electorates
- Contested Senate (WA) 13 April 1910
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Personal Information |
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18 March 1865 |
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Ballymena, Antrim, Northern Ireland |
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3 January 1954 |
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West Perth, Western Australia |
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Karrakatta Cemetery, Western Australia |
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To WA 1892 |
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Son of John, farmer, and Margaret White |
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Grandfather of William Leonard Grayden and David Grayden
Married (1) 19 September 1891, resident of John Thomas, Naseby, New Zealand, to Margaret Jane Thomas (born circa 1869), daughter of John and Ellen Chirgwin
Children: two sons and one daughter
Widowed 15 December 1921
Married (2) 5 February 1924, Scots Church, Melbourne, Victoria to Olive Estelle Story
Children: one son and one daughter |
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Presbyterian |
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Educated locally while working on father’s potato fields
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Mine manager and businessperson |
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1883 went to New Zealand, worked in gold mine
1887 went to Broken Hill, became mine’s foreman with BHP skilled in hydraulic work
1889 went to Zeehan, Tasmania, as mine manager, vice-president of local miners’ union
To WA 1892 as manager Fraser’s mine, Southern Cross
Managed White Feather Main Reef 1895, Kanowna 1 November 1898, Golden Pile 1903–1910
Built Perth Esplanade Hotel
1915 to Siberia and Japan promoting mining interests
Helped found Winterbottom Motor Company
1927 director of Wentworth Motors and Harper Motors (1952) |
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Mayor of Kanowna, 1897–1901 |
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Bought farm near Beverley
With State Government founder in 1947 of Nathaniel Harper Homes for retarded children
Argued throughout his life that he had convinced Sir John Forrest of feasibility of Coolgardie Goldfields Water Pipeline Scheme |
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D Black and G Bolton, eds, Biographical Register of Members of the Parliament of Western Australia: volume one 1870-1930, Parliamentary History Project, Perth, WA, 2010, p. 91. |
Bibliography |
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Alexander, Crowley and Legge
JS Battye, ed, The Cyclopedia of Western Australia, Hussey and Gillingham, Adelaide, 1912-1913, p. 343 (port.)
Ann Hoddinott, 'Harper, Nathaniel White (1865–1954)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/harper-nathaniel-white-6571/text11303, published first in hardcopy 1983, accessed online 22 December 2015.
Twentieth Century Impressions of Western Australia, PWH Thiel, Perth, 1901, p. 146
West Australian, 4 January 1954. |