Sir Hal Pateshall Colebatch (1872 - 1953) was one of the most interesting, colourful and respected figures in West Australian politics. His brief premiership in 1919 was only an interlude in a political life that lasted til 1948.
The son of poor immigrants, Colebatch arrived at the Coolgardie-Kalgoorie goldfields in the 1890s and went into journalism, living in a tent and sleeping in newspaper. He soon made a mark with his journalism, despite having left school at the age of 11. He was also West Australian chess champion around the turn of the century.
Colebatch entered State politics and, as an uppper house member, soon became a Minister, with charge of all government business in the upper house. He became Premier in 1919 but resigned after only a month because he could not get a lower house seat he considered suitable.
During that time, however, he had to deal with the Spanish Flu epidemic reaching Western Australia and a serious riot on the wharves. He survived an assassination attempt when he personally confronted the rioters, who were preventing desperately-needed hospital supplies being unloaded from the ship "Dimboola." Following this he occupied many Ministerial Positions,and as Minister for Education was responsible for Western Australia's first country high schools.
Colebatch was knighted in 1928, and the following year he produced, and wrote most of, the State's official history, "A Story of a Hundred Years". He was a lifelong and sometimes very unfashionable advocate of free trade as a mean to international co-operation and peace. He became Western Australia's agent-general in London, a Federal Senator, and then agent-general again, for an unprecedented time, during which he travelled widely in Europe and made contact with a number of leading German anti-Nazis who were trying to forestall the rise of Adolf Hitler.
A brilliant speaker and orator, he had many influential friends and associates including Winston Churchill, and was greatly respected by Australians of all parties. He returned to Perth in 1939 and re-entered State Parliament where he sat for several more years. He owned a small newspaper, the "Northam Advertiser," and during World War II penned leading articles which make fascinating reading even today.
