Edward Meagher

Edward Raymond Meagher CBE ED (22 November 1908 – 31 May 1988) was an Australian politician.

He was born in Brunswick to storeman Edward Roden Meagher and Florence May Williams. He attended Melbourne Technical College, and from 1933 to 1948 was a municipal officer for Brunswick City Council. On 9 September 1939 he married Winifred Jean Hard; they had one son. He served in Syria and Java in World War II before his capture, after which he was a prisoner of war working on the Burma Railway (1942–45). He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire and awarded the Efficiency Decoration for his service. From 1948 he was the owner of a newsagency. In 1955 he was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly as the Liberal and Country Party member for Mentone (he would transfer to Frankston in 1967). From 1956 to 1958 he was government whip, and from 1958 to 1961 secretary to the cabinet. In 1961 he entered the ministry, but was not given a portfolio. He held the portfolios of Immigration (1962), Transport (1962–67), Housing (1967–72), Forests (1967–73), Aboriginal Affairs (1967–72), and Transport again (1973–76). He retired from politics in 1976, in which year he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Meagher died in 1988.^[1]

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