Gibbins married Sarah Beatrice Hugill at Princes Park Methodist Church, Liverpool in 1912, and they had two sons and two daughters.
Gibbins unsuccessfully contested the West Toxteth division of Liverpool for Labour in the general elections of 1922 and 1923, losing by only 139 votes on the latter occasion.
In April 1924, the long-serving but low-profile Unionist Member of Parliament (MP) for West Toxteth, Sir Robert Paterson Houston, Bt.
To Salvidge and his candidate, Thomas White, the issue was religion and specifically, denouncement of any attempt to adjust the boundaries of the newly created Northern Ireland.
The result was exceptional, as it remains the only occasion that a Labour government has gained a seat from the Opposition in an electoral contest.1 Gibbins held the seat by 379 votes in the 1924 general election, and comfortably in the 1929 general election, but was defeated by the Conservative Clyde Tabor Wilson in the landslide defeat of 1931.
Joseph Gibbins was again selected as by-election candidate, and on Tuesday 16 July 1935 he easily regained the seat on a swing of 19%.