Early Life
Norton was born in the Sydney suburb of Watsons Bay, son of the proprietor of the Truth, John Norton (1858-1916) and Ada McGrath (1871-1960), whom he married some weeks later. During his childhood he was subject to his father's drunken assaults on his mother and himself. He was educated at Scots College, Bellevue Hill. Valerie Lawson notes that "Norton often stayed away from school and was thrashed when he did attend." After failing to matriculate twice, he was sent to Christian Brothers' College, Waverley, where he was treated better.
Norton learned the newspaper trade in his father's business. His father died in 1916, but had disinherited his wife and Ezra and left the bulk of his estate to Ezra's 9 year old sister, Joan Norton (1907-1940). His mother Ada Norton (née McGrath) persusaded the New South Wales Parliament to backdate the new Testator's Family Maintenance Act to take effect before his father's death. Under this legislation, she succeeded in having his will rewritten in 1920 so that she and Ezra Norton each received a third of his inheritance, allowing Ezra Norton to gain control of Truth and Sportsman Ltd the publisher of the Truth (Sydney newspaper), the Melbourne Truth, sister papers in Brisbane and Perth and the Sydney Sportsman, each published on Sundays.
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