Bill Stephen (politician)

William Francis Stephen AM (23 July 1921 – 5 April 2013) was an Australian politician.

Stephen was born in Fremantle in Western Australia to blacksmith William Stephen and Vera May Pyke.[1] He attended local state schools and became a timber worker and locomotive engineman before serving in the Royal Australian Air Force from 1942 to 1946. He was a traffic officer from 1946 to 1947 and a dairy farmer in 1948 before moving to Pakenham, where he was the foreman at a food factory from 1950 to 1952. In 1953 he was granted land at Meredith as a soldier settler, and he became a small seeds producer. He was active in the local Primary Producers' Union and in the local Liberal Party.[1]

In 1964 Stephen was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly for Ballarat South.[2] From 1973 he was Acting Speaker[2] and Temporary Chairman of Committees,ref name=vic/> a position he held until his retirement in 1979. He remained active in the local community and was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 1999. Stephen died at East Melbourne in 2013.[2][1]

References

  1. ^ a b c Stephen, William Francis at the Wayback Machine (archived 30 March 2012)
  2. ^ a b c "William Francis Stephen". Members of Parliament. Parliament of Victoria. Retrieved 12 August 2025.


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