Arthur Coles served as Lord Mayor of Melbourne from 1938 to 1940.
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When World War I began, Arthur Coles enlisted as a private, fighting at Gallipoli and on the Western Front in France, and was wounded on three occasions before being commissioned as a lieutenant.
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Arthur Coles joined with two brothers and an uncle to open a variety store in Collingwood, a working-class suburb of Melbourne.
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The family opened a series of new Coles Variety Stores around the country, Arthur moving to Sydney in 1928 to open and manage the first one in New South Wales.
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Arthur Coles became Lord Mayor of Melbourne in 1938, remaining in that position until 1940.
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Arthur Coles was one of the two independent parliamentarians who held the balance of power through the early years of the Second World War.
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In 1944, Arthur Coles retired from business and devoted himself to public works, becoming the chair of both the Commonwealth Rationing Commission and the War Damage Commission.
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Arthur Coles was appointed chair of the Melbourne Olympic Games Committee in 1952, and a member of the CSIRO Advisory Council in 1956.
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Arthur Coles died in 1982, leaving three sons and three daughters.
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