biography
| name: |
Coombs, Herbert Cole
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nickname Nugget Coombs
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1906–97)
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| biography:
| Australian public servant, born in Perth, Western Australia. He studied at the London School of Economics, and joined the [Australian] Commonwealth Bank as an assistant economist, moving to the Treasury in 1939. He became governor of the bank in 1949, and in 1959 the inaugural governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, a position he held until he retired in 1968. He became Pro-Chancellor of the Australian National University (ANU) in 1959, and Chancellor in 1968. On his ‘retirement’ he worked with Aboriginal people in C Australia and the Kimberley region of Western Australia, and had written extensively on resource allocation and the environment. The personal adviser to seven Australian prime ministers, he was widely acknowledged as one of the most influential figures in his country since World War 2. |
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