Francis Lochée arrived at Fremantle in the Swan River colony (Western Australia) in December 1838 on the Britomart. According to Merab Harris Tauman, Lochée was ‘interested in colonial affairs and particularly in the settlement at Swan River … Well read, interested in politics, political economy and public affairs, a stimulating companion and an accomplished musician, Lochée was a welcome addition to colonial society.’
Merab Harris Tauman writes that Lochée, with William Tanner as co-proprietor, edited, printed and published a weekly newspaper The Inquirer: A Western Australian Journal of Politics and Literature. The first issue was published on Wednesday 5 August 1840. Tanner withdrew as co-proprietor on 28 June 1843. The announcement of the change of ownership, with an accompanying editorial by Lochée, is published in the 28 June 1843 issue. Lochée continued as sole proprietor, editor, publisher and printer until 22 July 1846. He published a farewell editorial in that issue. The Inquirer was sold to Richard West Nash who printed and published the newspaper until 16 December 1846. Edmund Stirling printed and published the Inquirer from 23 December 1846, buying it from Nash in May 1847.
Lochée also published works of non-fiction including Report on the Statistics of Western Australia in 1840; with observations by the Colonial Committee of Correspondence (1841) and Manual for the Cultivation of the Vine and Olive in Western Australia (1845) and two other periodicals, The Record, or Pastorals for Guildford (1842), which Merab Harris Tauman describes as ‘a short-lived monthly journal edited by William Mitchell’, and Journal of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of Western Australia (1843). In 1846 Lochée became the manager of the Western Australian Bank.
Source: Merab Harris Tauman, 'Lochée, Francis (1811–1893)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lochee-francis-2365/text3101, accessed 17 June 2013
