Hal Colebatch

Sir Harry Pateshall Colebatch CMG , better known as Sir Hal Colebatch, was a longserving and occasionally controversial figure in Western Australian politics. He was a member of the Western Australian Legislative Council for nearlyyears, the twelfth Premier of Western Australia for a month in 1919, agentgeneral in London for five years, and a federal senator for four years.

Hal Colebatch was born in Wolferlow in Herefordshire, England, onMarch 1872. His family migrated to Australia in 1878, settling at Goolwa in South Australia. Colebatch left school in 1883 at the age of 11, because his father could not afford to continue his education. He then found work as an office boy and junior reporter for a local newspaper, the Norwood Free Press. When this paper collapsed, he worked for a series of shortlived papers on the South Australian goldfields. He worked for the Petersburg Times and the Laura Standard. In 1888, he moved to Broken Hill, New South Wales, where he worked for six years as reporter for the Silver Age. There, he reported on a number of strike meetings in 1892, and was subsequently summoned as a Crown witness in the prosecution of some strike leaders.

Source: Wikipedia