Douglas Lockwood

Who was Douglas Lockwood?

Douglas Wright Lockwood was an Australian newspaperman and author.

Born in Natimuk, 25 kilometres west of Horsham in Victoria's Wimmera district, Lockwood left school at 12 to help run his father's newspaper, the weekly West Wimmera Mail, at the height of the Great Depression.

With his father's blessing he left home at 16 and worked as a reporter on rural Victorian papers in Camperdown, Tatura and Mildura before being hired by Sir Keith Murdoch in 1941 as a journalist on The Herald in Melbourne. He stayed with The Herald's parent company, the Herald and Weekly Times, for the rest of his life.

At the end of 1941 he was sent to Darwin with his new wife, Ruth, and was there for the first enemy attack on Australian soil on 19 February 1942.

After war service in the islands he returned to Darwin for the HWT group. Apart from a year in Melbourne and two in the group's London office, Lockwood remained in Darwin, writing 12 of his 13 books, until 1968, when he became managing editor of the HWT group's two newspapers in Port Moresby. He amalgamated them to create the country's first national daily, the PNG Post-Courier. Other senior editorial management roles followed, in Melbourne, Brisbane and again in Port Moresby. He was appointed managing editor of the Bendigo Advertiser in 1975 and remained there until his death.