The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Pater, Thomas Kennedy
Pater, Thomas Kennedy, S.M., eldest son of John Pater, of London, solicitor, was born in 1838. He entered at Lincoln's Inn in Sept. 1856, and was called to the Bar in June 1859. Having emigrated to Victoria, he practised his profession there, but left that colony and entered the public service of South Australia in March 1884, being appointed a special magistrate and Judge of the Northern Territory in October of that year. In 1890 he was appointed special magistrate at Port Adelaide.