Brian Con Penton (21 August 1904 – 24 August 1951) was an Australian journalist and novelist. He was born at Ascot, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland and educated at Brisbane Grammar School.
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In 1921, Penton found work as a copy-boy on the Brisbane Courier, and went on to work on The Sydney Morning Herald, The Daily Express and The Daily Mail in London, England, and Sir Frank Packer's The Daily Telegraph in Sydney, of which he eventually became the editor. He also did some speech-writing for the Australian prime minister S. M. Bruce, and for his predecessor William Morris Hughes. He was also a political and social commentator and published a number of works criticizing the political regimes of the day.[1] He wrote two novels Landtakers (1934), which chronicles pioneering life in Queensland from 1824-64, and a sequel Inheritors (1936). One of the principal characters in these books is said to be based on Patrick Mayne of the Mayne Inheritance.