Ambrose Pratt

Ambrose was the third of seven children of Eustace Pratt, a well-connected physician fluent in Mandarin Chinese who had spent some time in India and China, and was a friend of Henry Parkes and Edmund Barton. Ambrose's novels frequently focussed on criminal outsiders such as "The Push" (larrikin element analogous to the "bodgies" of the 1950s, "rockers" of the 1960s and "bikies" of today), and bushrangers such as Captain Thunderbolt and Ben Hall. He ended his life an opponent of the White Australia Policy and attempted to ameliorate the kind of xenophobia prevalent at the time (and finding support in the pages to The Bulletin) with his writings, exemplified by his 1941 play A Point in Time.