Vale Athol Yeomans

ATHOL YEOMANS WAS THE FOUNDER OF WHEELS, THE TITLE’S FIRST EDITOR AND A GIANT OF THE AUSTRALIAN PUBLISHING INDUSTRY

ATHOL YEOMANS first suggested a new car magazine in 1950. He was 21 and working in the production department of K.G. Murray Publishing. Fred Smith, Murray’s general manager, scoffed at the idea and, instead, started Man’s Life, Adventure Story and Master Detective. Predictably they soon disappeared, while Yeomans was fired for a practical joke on Smith that went spectacularly wrong. The motoring magazine didn’t happen.