Collier Cudmore

Olympic medal record
Men's Rowing
	1908 London	Men's coxless fours

Sir Collier Robert Cudmore (born June 13, 1885 - died May 16, 1971) was an Australian lawyer, politician and Olympic rower.

After attending the Unversity of Adelaide, he went to England to continue his Education at Magdalen College, Oxford. In 1908 Summer Olympics he rowed in for Great Britain. He was the bowman of the British boat, which won the gold medal in the coxless fours. He studied law at the Inner Temple and was called to the bar in 1910, then returned to Australia and formed a partnership with Stanley Murray. He practiced law until 1955.

An officer in the Royal Field Artillery Special Reserve, Cudmore commanded a battery in France during the First World War. He was wounded twice, and as a result was plagued by back problems for the rest of his life.

Returning from Europe in 1919, Cudmore became interested Australian politics. He was involved in the administration of the State Repatriation Board, the Soldiers' Fund, and the South Australian Sailors and Soldiers' Distress Fund. As vice-president of the South Australian Liberal Federation, he was a force behind its 1932 merger with the Country Party to for the Liberal and Country League.

In 1933 Cudmore was elected to the Legistlative Council to represent Adelaide Central District No.2. From 1934-36 he was president of the Liberal and Country League. From 1939 to 1959, when he retired, he was the leader of his party in the Upper House. Cudmore was an outspoken opponent of Thomas Playford IV's nationalization of the Adelaide Electric Company, which was owned by Murray, and constituted a major draw on a treasury already at its limits. Cudmore also advocated harsher sentences for child abusers, a parlimentary public accounts committee, relaxed gaming regulation, and the establishment of a red-light district. Many of theose reforms proved too liberal for the day, but Cudmore did achive animal protection laws, pensions for supreme court judges, and manditory tuberculosis examinations.

He was knighted in 1958.

External links

• profile at databaseolympics.com

Sources

• P. A. Howell, "Cudmore, Sir Collier Robert (1885 - 1971)" at Australian Dictionary of Biography online. First published in print in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 13, Melbourne University Press, 1993, pp 540-541.