He himself was a member of the Free Trade Party, and became associated with its more radical section, led by George Reid.

[1] In 1894 Wilks was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for the Free Trade Party for the new district of Balmain North.

[2] Wilks was a strong supporter of Premier Reid while in the New South Wales Parliament, and attempted unsuccessfully to defuse an 1899 censure motion against Reid with an amendment separating the issue of John Neild's payment from the main motion.

He was whip in the 1904–1905 Reid government, and was useful to his leader in the controversies surrounding Cardinal Patrick Francis Moran.

Following his wife Florence's death in 1926, he had married Edna Eunice Hinchcliffe in Melbourne on 6 August 1927.