John Hearman
Australian politician
John Merrifield Hearman CMG (10 November 1910 – 20 February 1994) was an Australian politician who was a Liberal Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Western Australia from 1950 to 1968, representing the seat of Blackwood. He served as Speaker of the Legislative Assembly from 1959 to 1968, with only Sir James Lee-Steere having served in the position longer.
Early life
Hearman was born in Surrey, England, to Minnie (née Merrifield) and Walter Edgar Hearman. His family moved to Western Australia when he was three years old, settling in Donnybrook. His older sister, Joan Tully, became a prominent agricultural scientist. Attending Guildford Grammar School, Hearman was a talented rower in his youth and represented Western Australia at the 1930 King's Cup (the Australian national championships).
In 1939, Hearman enlisted in the Australian Army, where he was initially attached to the 2/16th Battalion as a platoon commander and machine gunner. Hearman saw service in the Middle East, New Guinea, Borneo, and the Celebes, and was mentioned in dispatches during the Kokoda Campaign. He reach the rank of major by the war's end and was briefly attached to the British Indian Army in 1946, as an officer in the 80th Infantry Brigade. Hearman was discharged in March 1946, and returned to his dairy farm.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as australian politician. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q24191303. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1910, 1994, 1950 and 1968.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Hearman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.