Ephraim Henry Coombe (26 August 1858 – 5 April 1917) was a South Australian newspaper editor and politician. He was editor of the Bunyip at Gawler from 1890 to 1914. He was a member of the South Australian House of Assembly from 1901 to 1912 and 1915 to 1917, representing the electorate of Barossa. A long-time liberal in the House, he refused to join the united conservative Liberal Union in 1910, and was defeated in 1912 recontesting as an independent. Following his defeat, he edited the Daily Herald from 1914 to 1916. He was re-elected to the House for Barossa in 1915, having joined the Labor Party, but died in office in 1917. History Born in Gawler, Coombe was the elder son of Mary and Ephraim Coombe (ca.1828–1908), a farm-labourer and shopkeeper from Barnstaple, Devon, who came to South Australia in 1855 and from 1875 ran the store and post office at Willaston. He was educated at L. S. Burton's school in Gawler, and after working as a grocery assistant in James Harris's Gawler Stores then as a partner at his father's Willaston store, he became a journalist. From 1888 he acted as correspondent for the South Australian Register and from 1890 to 1914 was editor of the Gawler Bunyip, and to a large extent responsible for its popularity. He then worked for the Adelaide Daily Herald as editor from 1914 to 1916. He was a speedy and accurate shorthand writer, and as such appointed an official stenographer at the Federation conference at Adelaide in 1897. Political career Coombe was president of the Barossa Political Reform League in the 1880s and an advocate of the Hare-Spence system of proportional representation. He stood as Liberal candidate for the seat of Barossa in the South Australian House of Assembly in 1896 then again in 1899, both times unsuccessfully, but won as a Labor candidate in 1901 when Sir John Downer vacated the seat to enter the Federal arena. He was reelected as an independent in 1902 and again in 1905. He was appointed Opposition whip in 1904 and Chairman of Committees in 1905. He was Commissioner of Crown Lands in the Peake Government, and chairman of the Royal Commission to enquire into the handling and marketing of wheat. He contested the 1906 election for the Liberal and Democratic Union. He held the seat until 1912, resigned from the Liberal and Democratic Union