Cirrus@Austlit

Journalist, newspaper owner and politician Sir Hal Pateshall Colebatch came to Australia from Yorkshire in England with his parents, first settling in South Australia. In 1895 he moved to Western Australia working as a journalist in Kalgoorlie, Perth and Northam where he bought the Northam Advertiser in partnership with a colleague. He became Mayor of Northam in 1909 and moved into state politics in 1912. He was premier of Western Australia for one month in 1919, his premiership coinciding with the events of 'Bloody Sunday' in Fremantle where strikes and riots broke out on the Fremantle Wharf. During the next decades he served in State and Federal governments, in the latter as a senator, and for two terms in London as Agent General for Western Australia. Known for his writing and love of reading, Sir Hal Colebatch is the father of the writer Hal Colebatch (q.v.)