during his 30 year political life. Meticulously researched and drawing on 172 hours of recorded interviews, Charles Court is a comprehensive look at this pioneer of resource development in Western Australia.

colony - as surveyor, inland explorer, public servant, and first premier of Western Australia - showed how energy, grit and determination, together with the right circumstances, could enable a colonial-born youth from an artisan family to achieve wealth, influence and political power. During the 1890s, he completely transformed Western Australia's communications, and developed a code of public ethics that allowed state power to aid private enterprise for the benefit of the community.".