Frederic Whitcombe

Who is Frederic Whitcombe?

Frederic Whitcombe was a Member of the Western Australian Legislative Council from 1898 to 1900.

Born in Christchurch, New Zealand on 15 October 1858, Frederic Whitcombe was the son of civil engineer Henry Whitcombe and Maria née North.

Henry Whitcombe, after whom Whitcombe Pass in the Southern Alps is named, drowned in 1863 in the Taramakau River on one of his many West Coast exploration trips. Edward Cephas John Stevens was put in charge of the fund which allowed the Whitcombe boys to attend Christ’s College. On 20 May 1869, at St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Upper Riccarton, Stevens married Maria Whitcombe. They had two further sons, one of whom died in infancy.

Nothing is known of Frederic Whitcombe's life until 1890, by which time he was practising as a solicitor at Geraldton, Western Australia. On 1 March 1892 he married Alice Mein at Albany, and they had at least two sons and one daughter. By 1897 he was living at Mount Magnet.

On 11 May 1898, Whitcombe was elected to a North Province seat in the Western Australian Legislative Council. However, on 30 November 1900 the Barrister Board struck him off their roll for misappropriation of funds. Three days later he resigned his seat. Nothing further is known of his life, but it is likely that he left Western Australia.