Bill Mather-Brown

William Edgar Mather-Brown (14 April 1936 – 17 August 2025) 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. 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 Australian Paralympic Team members in the in-field at the athletics during the 1964 Tokyo Paralympic Games. From left (seated) Frank Ponta, team official John Johnston, Elizabeth Edmondson, Lionel Cousens and Bill Mather-Brown 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.

Recognition Inducted into Wheelchair Sports WA Hall of Fame. Life Membership of Wheelchair Sports WA – 1981 Western Australian Citizen of the Year for Sport – 1981 Australian Wheelchair Basketball Hall of Fame – 1995 Australian Sports Medal – 2000 as a "basketball Paralympian - Captain/Coach since 1957". Centenary Medal – 2001 "for service to the community through disabled and wheelchair sports".