Sir Henry Edward Bolte GCMG was an Australian politician who served as the 38th Premier of Victoria.
18 Facts About Henry Bolte
2.
Henry Bolte was born in Ballarat, the son of a publican of German descent.
3.
Henry Bolte was to spend the first 24 years of his life in the small Western District town of Skipton.
4.
In 1940 Bolte joined the Australian Army and served as a sergeant with a training regiment until 1945.
5.
When Henry Bolte was elected to Parliament in 1947 the Liberal leader was Thomas Hollway, who came from Ballarat but was somewhat less conservative than Henry Bolte.
6.
Henry Bolte was a rough-hewn politician who liked to be seen as a simple farmer, but he had a shrewd political mind.
7.
Henry Bolte used state debt to provide a wide range of state infrastructure and he was very successful at winning overseas investment for the state.
8.
Henry Bolte was easily re-elected at the 1958,1961 and 1964 state elections.
9.
Henry Bolte was a proponent of using capital punishment as a deterrent against violent crime.
10.
Henry Bolte had the power to recommend clemency, but declined to exercise it, arguing that the death penalty was a necessary deterrent for crime against government officials and law enforcement officers.
11.
Henry Bolte had said "If I thought the law was wrong I would change it".
12.
Henry Bolte's standing was reduced by a crisis in the state education system, with teacher shortages and overcrowded schools as the children of the baby boom passed through the education system.
13.
At the 1970 state elections the Liberals seemed in serious danger of losing office, or at least being forced into a coalition with the Country Party, but Henry Bolte was saved by Holding's left-wing enemies in the Labor Party, who sabotaged his campaign by publicly opposing government funding for non-government schools.
14.
Henry Bolte was promoted to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George in the 1972 New Year Honours.
15.
Henry Bolte was shrewd enough to see that the Liberals had a year at most to broaden their appeal before a statutory general election, and concluded that they needed a new leader and a new image for the 1970s.
16.
On 24 March 1984, Henry Bolte was involved in a serious head-on accident when he was driving home after an evening in the local hotel near his property at Bamganie.
17.
Henry Bolte later told author Tom Prior "Of course I know nothing, I was unconscious".
18.
Henry Bolte was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in the New Year's Day honours list of 1966.