Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), Saturday 5 June 1943, page 4


OBITUARY

MR GEORGE COCKERILL

Mr George Cockerill, one of Aus-tralia's most distinguished jour-nalists, died at the home of his son, Dr J. E. Cockerill, of Abbotsford, on Thursday. He was 72, and there was a private funeral at the Melbourne General Cemetery yesterday morn-ing.

It has been said of Mr Cockerill that, as leader writer of the Age, he had a considerable influence upon the shaping of Australia's fiscal policy, for he was an ardent and trenchant advocate of a policy of protection. He was, moreover, noted for his writings on all political sub-jects, as well as for the interest he took in all topics associated with mining, an interest he acquired in his early days in Bendigo, where he was born, and where he served his apprenticeship in journalism. In 1926 Mr Cockerill went to Sydney to become editor of the Daily Telegraph, but 2 years later he returned to Mel-bourne to take up a position with the Department of Supply and De-velopment. Later he became a leader writer on the Herald, but a severe illness compelled his retire-ment 5 years ago.

Apart from daily journalism Mr Cockerill found time to write a num-ber of short stories and several books, including "In Days of Gold" and "Building the Commonwealth-Aus-tralia's Protective Policy." He re-cently wrote his memoirs, which will shortly be published under the title

of "Scribblers and Statesmen." Among his close friends were Mr W. M. Hughes and Mr King O'Malley, as well as other Parlia-mentarians whom he had met in the early days of Federation. He leaves a widow, 2 sons, and a daughter. Another daughter was killed in an accident 2 years ago.