Alfred Edward Tharratt

Northcote Mayor (1907-08), (1908-09), (1914-15)

Alfred Edward Tharratt was born in Lancefield in 1868. He married Amelia Pearce in 1890 and moved in to a house in High Street, Northcote where their children Edith, Ruth, Wallis, Irene and Reginald were born between the years 1892 and 1906. A humble ironmonger and later a timber merchant Alfred had enough standing in the community to be elected Mayor on Northcote on three occasions, serving in 1907-1908, 1908-1909 and again in 1914-15. The family moved at the end of WWI to Kew.

During Tharratt's third term as Mayor, war was declared. Along with other Northcote dignitaries, he went to the Army Broadmeadows training camp to present essential items (pipes, silver matchboxes, fountain pens included) to the first 79 soldiers who had enlisted from Northcote. Alfred Tharratt died in Blackburn in 1940.

Lemon, Andrew (1983). The Northcote Side of the River. North Melbourne: Hargreen.