| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | The Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate |
| Editors | Geoffrey Browne, Kay Walsh, Joel Bateman and Hari Gupta |
| Place of Publication | Carlton, Victoria |
| Publisher | Melbourne University Press (an imprint of Melbourne University Publishing) |
| Pages | 492-493pp |
| Volume | 4 |
| Edition | 1st |
| ISBN (Print) | 0 522 85090 1 |
| Publication status | Published - 2004 |
Abstract
William Carroll, wheat farmer, was one of a number of rural activists who helped to create the Country Party and who, by entering the federal Parliament in the 1920s and 1930s, changed the Australian political landscape. Born in the Western District of Victoria, at Garvoc, in the Shire of Warrnambool, on 3 January 1872, he was the son of Scottish-born James Carroll, and his wife Mary, née Larkin, from Ireland. Their third child, and the second son of eight surviving children, William attended the state school at Horsham in the district where his father farmed. James Carroll later became the secretary of Wimmera Shire, where Will first turned to farming. Will later recalled growing wheat in the Wimmera district and considering himself well paid when he received 2s. 6d or 2s. 8d a bushel. When drought added to Victorias hard times, he went to Melbourne for employment, and on 30 March 1898 at 114 Park Street, West Brunswick, married, in accordance with the rites of the Presbyterian Church, Annie Jane Nicholson, the daughter of a military officer.[1] With a brother, Carroll took ship for Western Australia in May. Living first at Fremantle, he and his wife moved to Kalgoorlie where, in 1901, he found employment at the gold mines. He nearly lost his life at the Perseverance mine in 1903 when a rope snapped and he was buried in a vat of crushed ore.