William Gilbert

William Gilbert, who lived from 23 February 1829 to 4 February 1919, was a politician and philanthropist in South Australia. Born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, the only son of a millwright and engineer, he ran his father's business and a flour mill at High Wycombe before emigrating to South Australia in 1869, where he built a chaff and fodder business in North Adelaide. He sat in the South Australian House of Assembly from 1881 to 1906 for Yatala and then Barossa, led the Independent Country Party for five years, refused ministries, and left parliament as the Father of the House. He gave decades of unpaid service to hospitals, charities, the YMCA and the Royal Agricultural Society. Gilbert was a bowls player.