Thomas Paterson
Thomas Paterson (20 November 1882 – 24 January 1952) was an Australian politician who served as deputy leader of the Country Party from 1929 to 1937.He held ministerial office in the governments of Stanley Bruce and Joseph Lyons, representing the Division of Gippsland in Victoria from 1922 to 1943.Prior to leaving he worked on a farm and attended the Dairy School in Kilmarnock in order to gain experience in agriculture.He resigned as minister and deputy party leader after the 1937 elections, as a result of the 1936 controversy over the exclusion from Australia of Mabel Freer, a white British woman born in India, who, under the terms of the 1901 Immigration Restriction Act, had failed a dictation test in Italian.After leaving politics he served as a director of the Phosphate Cooperative Company of Australia and the Victorian Wheat-Growers' Corporation.