Kelly was born on 22 June 1912 in Riverton, South Australia. He was the son of Ada May (née Dawson) and William Stanley Kelly. His grandfather Robert Kelly had been a member of parliament in the 1890s.[1]
Kelly was raised on his father's farming property "Merrindie" near Tarlee. He attended the local public school and then boarded at Prince Alfred College in Adelaide from 1925 to 1929. After leaving school he returned to the family farm.[1] As W. S. Kelly and Sons, he and his father bred prize-winning Dorset Horn sheep,[2] including championship honours at the Melbourne Royal Show.[3] In 1942, Kelly listed in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and undertook air crew training. He subsequently transferred to the Air Force Reserve in order to remain in South Australia.[1]
In 1951, Kelly was awarded a Nuffield Fellowship to study farming in the United Kingdom.[4][5][6] He was also appointed to the South Australian Advisory Board on Agriculture, of which his father had also been a member. He was introduced to economic policy by his father, who served on the federal government's Tariff Board in the 1930s and was an advisor to Douglas Copland on agricultural product pricing during World War II.[1]
Political career
Along with his family political connections, an early political influence on Kelly was South Australian MP Charles Hawker, whom Kelly later described as a "hero".[1]
Bert was opposed to protectionism … because it created a situation in which governments, in the person of ministers or officials, granted arbitrary and capricious favours to some, who were thus greatly enriched, at the expense of others, who were at best impoverished and at worst, ruined.
