Ninian Stephen - Early Life

Early Life

Ninian Martin Stephen was born on 15 June 1923 in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England. He was less than a year old when his father, Frederick, who had been a motorcycle courier in World War I, died, leaving him to be raised by his mother Barbara. Stephen attended St Paul's School, West Kensington, London, from Spring Term 1937 to March 1938. He emigrated to Australia as a child. He was educated at Scotch College and the University of Melbourne, but his studies were interrupted by World War II, in which he served in the Australian Army in New Guinea and Borneo, rising to the rank of lieutenant. He completed his legal studies in 1950 and was called to the Victorian Bar in 1952. By the 1960s he was one of Australia's leading constitutional and commercial lawyers. He was made a Queen's Counsel in 1966.

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