Charles Bateson (4 August 1903 – 5 July 1974) was a maritime historian, journalist and author.

Early life

Charles Henry Bateson was born in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

, son of Charles Bateson, a company manager born Liverpool, England, and mother Alice Lowe, née Rossiter, from Wales. He was educated at Hurworth school,

Taranaki Taranaki is a region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. It is named after its main geographical feature, the stratovolcano of Mount Taranaki, also known as Mount Egmont. The main centre is the city of New Plymouth. The New Plymouth D ...

, before migrating to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

in 1922.

Career

Journalist

Charles Bateson worked as a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

for a number of Australian papers. He worked for newspaper proprietor Ezra Norton's "Truth and Sportsman Ltd" becoming a talented administrator and lead writer for the Sydney ''

Truth Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as belief ...

'' and Melbourne ''

''. After Norton's newspapers were taken over by News Ltd Bateson became editorial manager of Mirror Newspapers Ltd, before helping launch ''

The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...

'' newspaper.

War correspondent

Working for the Department of the Interior during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

first as a publicity officer and then as principal information officer, he later became a war correspondent. It was during this time that he met two pilots in London with whom he collaborated in writing two of his early works as a writer: ''Spitfires over Malta'' (1943) and ''First into Italy'' (1944).

Author

After his journalistic career Bateson pursued his interest in writing particularly in the maritime history of Australia and the Pacific. He was editor of ''The Log'', the official journal of the Australian and New Zealand branch of the

World Ship Society The World Ship Society (WSS) is an international society devoted to maritime and naval history. Founded in 1946 as Ship News Club in order to distribute shipping information to correspondents, the society now has thousands of members in dozens of ...

between 1958 and 1966. Bateson's greatest success came with the publication of ''The Convict Ships 1787–1868'' (first published 1959). Containing a comprehensive list of convict transports to the Australian colonies between 1787 and 1868 this remains the standard reference work of its type, an indispensable tool especially for those researching

convict A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as " prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former conv ...

ancestry. Another publishing success came with ''Australian Shipwrecks'' (1972). Bateson completed the first volume in what was to be a six volume series of books on maritime disasters in Australia. After his death the series was completed by

Jack Loney Jack Kenneth Loney (21 October 1925 – 13 February 1995) was an amateur Australian maritime historian who published over one hundred books and numerous newspaper and magazine articles. He was a schoolteacher and principal until his retirement. ...

. Bateson bequeathed his collection of 1300 books and his personal papers to the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.

List of works

* ''Spitfires over Malta'' (1943) * ''First into Italy'' (1944) * ''The Convict Ships 1788–1868'' (1959) * ''Gold fleet for California: forty-niners from Australia and New Zealand'' (1964) * ''Patrick Logan – tyrant of Brisbane Town'' (1966) * ''The War with Japan: a concise history'' (1968) * ''Early sailor'' (1968) * ''Early soldier'' (1968) * ''Early surveyor'' (1970) * ''A Chartmaker'' (1972) * ''A Gold commissioner'' (1972) * ''Australian Shipwrecks v1: 1622–1850'' (1972) * ''Dire Strait: a history of Bass Strait'' (1973)

Personal life

Shortly after arriving in Australia, Bateson met and married journalist Coy Catherine Foster-Lynam on 27 August 1923 at St Peter's Anglican Church East Sydney. Bateson pursued his interests in military, naval and maritime history throughout his life particularly in retirement and was a member of the

Royal Australian Historical Society The Royal Australian Historical Society, formerly Australian Historical Society, is a voluntary organisation founded in Sydney, Australia in 1901Helen Doyle, "Royal Australian Historical Society" in Graeme Davison, John Hirst and Stuart Ma ...

. Bateson died of coronary vascular disease at

Vaucluse Vaucluse (; oc, Vauclusa, label= Provençal or ) is a department in the southeastern French region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. It had a population of 561,469 as of 2019.Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

on 5 July 1974, survived by his second wife Ann and daughter Louise of his first marriage.