AustLit

Australian businessman, journalist, author and cricketer.

Educated at Launceston Church Grammar School, Raymonf Ferrall initially pursued a career as a journalist but went on to work for his father's grocery business, first as a commercial traveller and later in management. He promoted the company nationally and overseas and later developed it into the wholesaler Four Roses Foods. Ferrall served on the boards or held directorships of several Launceston businesses and utilities including the Launceston Bank for Savings, The Examiner (newspaper), Boag's Brewery, forestry company Gunns, the Launceston Gas Company and the Hydro-Electric Commission. He was also chairman of the board of Qintex when Christopher Skase made a successful takeover bid for the company (he had retired before the company collapsed) and a foundation director of ENT Ltd., a Tasmanian entertainment and media company.

As R.A. Ferrall he wrote a number of fiction and non-fiction works. The first, Partly Personal: Recollections of a One-Time Tasmanian Journalist (1974) was followed two years later by the fiction novel Idylls of the Mayor (1976). In the early 1980s, he wrote two biographical compendiums: Notable Tasmanians (1980) and Tasmanians All (1982), and another novel, The Age of Chiselry: In Eleven Slightly Irregular Escapades (1981). Another history, The Story of the Port of Launceston was published in 1983. His last book, an autobiography titled 90 Years On: A Tasmanian Story was published in 1995. Ferrall was then aged 90.

Ferrall was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1969 Queen's Birthday Honours, for his role as warden of the Port of Launceston Authority. He was knighted in 1982 for his service to industry, commerce and to the community.