Albert Edward Gigney

Albert Gigney, whose father was a contract builder, was born in Magill - the only boy and the youngest child in a family of seven children. He left school at thirteen and worked as an office boy and then as a warehouse assistant at A. Simpson & Son. After four and a half years he saw no future in the job and took a position as a junior farm worker on a farm near Petina on the West Coast. Albert left there in September 1915 to join the 11th Regiment of the 4th Light Horse Brigade. He served three years in the Middle East and on his return decided to continue on the land but was unable to get a soldier settler land grant. An uncle suggested that he go to Western Australia where, in 1922, his application for land at Baandee (on the Perth-Kalgoorlie road) was immediately successful. He returned to Magill to marry and then farmed in Western Australia until 1941 when he came back to Magill to take work at Wynn's winery. Mr Gigney had two children.