Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
- Brigadier General Evan Wisdom
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
Evan Alexander Wisdom was born on 29 September 1869 at Inverness, Scotland. At the age of 22 he migrated to Western Australia and went as a prospector to Southern Cross on the Yilgarn goldfield. In 1892 he joined the goldfield at Coolgardie and opened a store. He then joined the goldfield at Kalgoorlie acquiring extensive mining interests and establishing the Exchange Hotel. In October 1901 Wisdom was appointed lieutenant in the Western Australian Mounted Infantry and in 1908 was brigade major of the Western Australian Infantry Brigade. He was mayor of Cottesloe in 1908-13 and member for Claremont in the Legislative Assembly in 1911-1917. On the onset of war in 1914 Wisdom was in charge of the Karrakatta training camp. He transferred to the Australian Imperial Forces in March 1915 and served in the Gallipoli campaign and the Western Front commanding the 18th Infantry Battalion, 7th Infantry Brigade and the “Liaison Force”. Wisdom returned to Australia in December 1919 and on 21 March 1921 he succeeded Brigadier General Thomas Griffiths as military administrator of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea. His first task was to convert the administration to a civil one and on 9 May 1921 a civil government was established and Wisdom became a civil administrator. In 1930, at the onset of the depression, the fall in copra prices and gold production led to reduced government activities. In March 1932 Wisdom opened the Bulolo Gold Dredging Co. After eleven years as administrator, Wisdom left Rabaul in June 1932 and retired in June 1933. He returned to his gold mining ventures and travelled between Melbourne and Perth. Wisdom died in Melbourne on 7 December 1945.
Places
Perth; Melbourne; Rabaul, Papua New Guinea
Legal status
Functions, occupations and activities
colonial administrator; gold miner; local official; soldier; state politician
Mandates/sources of authority
Internal structures/genealogy
General context
Relationships area
Access points area
Subject access points
Place access points
Occupations
Control area
Authority record identifier
Institution identifier
Rules and/or conventions used
Status
Level of detail
Dates of creation, revision and deletion
Entered from deposit description on 23 April 2012
Language(s)
Script(s)
Sources
McNicoll, Ronald, 'Wisdom, Evan Alexander (1869–1945)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/wisdom-evan-alexander-9160/text16173, accessed 1 November 2011.