COURTNEY, VICTOR DESMOND (1894-1970), journalist, was born on 27 May 1894 at Raymond Terrace, New South Wales, seventh child of Henry Courtney, a newspaper proprietor from England, and his native-born wife Katie, née O'Connor. The family moved to Western Australia where Henry was managing editor of the Greenbushes Advocate and the short-lived Sunday Press (Perth). On leaving school in 1909, Victor entered the State public service before taking a cadetship in 1911 with the Sunday Times. In 1918, in partnership with John Joseph Simons, he became managing editor of a sporting weekly, the Call, soon gaining publicity from a libel suit brought by the lord mayor of Perth, Sir William Lathlain. The partners also acquired a struggling Saturday-evening paper, the Mirror, and built its circulation during the 1920s to over 10,000, largely through racy reporting of scandals and divorces.

By 1935 Courtney and Simons were able to take ...

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Australian Dictionary of Biography