Bill Mather-Brown


William Edgar Mather-Brown was an Australian Paralympian. A member of the Australian team at the inaugural 1960 Rome Paralympics, he went on to win two medals at three Paralympics, along with seven medals at the 1962 Perth Commonwealth Paraplegic Games.

Background

Mather-Brown was born in the Western Australian city of Fremantle on 14 April 1936. He contracted polio in 1938 aged 2 in the town of Agnew in the Goldfields, Northeast of Kalgoorlie. He spent two years in the Kalgoorlie Hospital before moving back to Perth. He married Nadine Vine on 6 January 1967, who attended the 1972 Heidelberg Games as a team nurse. They had two children.
He published two books of verse, From My Destined Way in 1983 and Songs of the Possum and Other Verses in 1994.
Mather-Brown died on 17 August 2025, at the age of 89. He was the last living member of Australia's 1960 Paralympic team.

Paralympic Games

He had a lifelong interest in sport and joined wheelchair sports in 1955. He went to the Stoke Mandeville games in 1957 and competed in several sports. At the 1960 Rome Paralympics, he won a silver medal in Men's Class B table tennis with Bruno Moretti and participated in the Australia men's national wheelchair basketball team. At the 1964 Tokyo Paralympics, he participated in wheelchair fencing as part of the Men's Épée Team. At the 1968 Tel Aviv Paralympics, he won a silver medal in the Men's Slalom A event and participated in swimming, table tennis and wheelchair basketball events.

Commonwealth Paraplegic Games

Mather-Brown competed at the 1962 Commonwealth Paraplegic Games in his home town of Perth. He won medals in four sports. In weightlifting he won the gold medal in the men's lightweight class B, in wheelchair basketball he won Gold in the Men's competition, in table tennis he won a gold medal in the men's doubles Class B and a silver medal in the men's class B, in swimming he won gold in the men's backstroke 50 metres Class C, and silver in the men's 50 metres crawl, class C.

Recognition