Alfred Thomas Chandler

Alfred Thomas Chandler (3 June 1852 – 17 October 1941) was a journalist, editor and newspaper proprietor in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia. He was prominent in the Western Australian secession movement.

History Chandler was born in Geelong, Victoria, and began his journalistic career on The Hamilton Spectator. He moved to Adelaide, where he found employment with both daily papers: the South Australian Register (editor Will Sowden, in an article on Adelaide press clubs, remembers Chandler as a compositor. ), then The Advertiser. He was a member of the Adelaide Savage Club, contributing several admired poems to the club's 1885 Christmas Annual. He was, in 1889, with H. O. Evans, J. M. Black, and J. R. Powell, a member of the House of Assembly's first Hansard staff. While working at The Advertiser he published two books of verse: A Bush Idyl and Songs of the Sunland. He joined Harry Evans as co-editor of Quiz, a satirical weekly, to which he also regularly contributed examples of his poetry. Chandler was a keen cricketer, a welcome member of the Press team in the annual Press v. Parliament matches.

On 31 August 1894 he left the partnership (of, by then, Quiz and The Lantern) and left for Coolgardie, where he worked on J. M. Smith's weekly Goldfield Courier and its sister daily, the Golden Age. In 1896 he was elected secretary to the Coolgardie Stock Exchange and the Coolgardie Railway League. He was next editor of the Coolgardie Miner, and gained a great deal of knowledge on the subject of mining, and served as John Kirwan's Coolgardie secretary. In 1905 he left the Miner for the position of secretary to the North End Gold Mining Company Ltd.

Around 1911 he moved to Perth, where he joined the staff of The Sunday Times and around 1920 was promoted to editor, succeeding J. E. Webb, who left for a position with The Bulletin. He retired around 1925, but continued contributing to the Sunday Times and other journals. and its president when a secession petition was tabled in the House of Commons. In 1937 he contributed an article to the Sunday Times on the life of Arthur Lovekin.

In 1938 he was granted a Commonwealth Literary Pension of £1 a week.

Publications A Bush Idyl and other poems E. S. Wigg & Son. 1887 Songs of the Sunland E. S. Wigg & Son. 1889 The Case for Secession W.A. Secession League 1926