Alfred Ernest Shepherd (6 January 1901 – 12 September 1958) was an Australian politician. He was an

Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms t ...

member of the

Victorian Legislative Assembly The Victorian Legislative Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria in Australia; the upper house being the Victorian Legislative Council. Both houses sit at Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The presidin ...

for the electorates of Sunshine (1945–1955),

Ascot Vale Ascot Vale is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, north-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Moonee Valley local government area. Ascot Vale recorded a population of 15,197 at the 2021 c ...

(1955–1958) and Footscray (1958). He was Minister for Education in the 1952-55 John Cain government and was leader of the Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1957 until his death the following year.
''re-member'' (Victorian Parliament database). Shepherd was born in Bendigo, the son of Bendigo Trades Hall Council president Alfred Shepherd. He was educated at Violet Street State School, but left school at 14 to work for import firm Robert Harper & Co., continuing to study at night at the Bendigo School of Mines. He was a pattern-maker by trade, beginning as an apprentice at the Newport Railway Workshops at 17 and remaining there until his election to parliament in 1945, by which time he had risen to the role of sub-foreman. Shepherd was a

City of Footscray The City of Footscray was a local government area about west of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia. The city covered an area of and existed from 1859 until 1994. Its civic centre, after which it was named, was Footscray. Hi ...

councillor from 1943 to 1955 and mayor from 1948 to 1949. He was also founding director of the Footscray District Housing Co-operative Society in 1945 and a municipal representative on the

Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital, originally known as Queens Memorial Infectious Diseases Hospital, operated from 1904 to its closure in 1996. Perched high on the banks of the Yarra River at Yarra Bend in the inner Melbourne suburb of Fai ...

board from 1947 to 1956, serving as board chairman 1952-56. Shepherd was also a keen sportsman, particularly in Australian rules football and

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

. He played football for the

Footscray Football Club The Western Bulldogs are a professional Australian rules football team that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition. Founded in 1877 as the Footscray Football Club, and based in West Footscray in the o ...

and North Melbourne Football Club seconds, was an umpire in the

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...

second division, and was secretary of the Footscray Football Club in 1930 and the Footscray District Football League from 1933 to 1945. In swimming, he was secretary of the Footscray Swimming Club from 1918 to 1930, and a judge and registrar of the Victorian Amateur Swimming Association. Shepherd was elected unopposed to the new seat of Sunshine at the 1945 election following his narrow victory in a hard-fought Labor preselection. When Labor won government under John Cain in 1952, he was promoted to Minister for Education, but the Cain government lost office in 1955 after only one term amidst the 1955 Labor split. His Sunshine electorate was abolished in a redistribution at the 1955 election, and he switched to the new seat of

. Shepherd was promoted to deputy leader after Labor's 1955 defeat, at which his predecessor had lost his seat. When Cain died in 1957, Shepherd was elected unopposed as Labor leader and Leader of the Opposition. He shifted to the existing seat of Footscray in 1958 after the Ascot Vale seat was abolished in a redistribution. Shepherd died in office in 1958. He had collapsed at the opening ceremony of a youth centre at

West Footscray West Footscray is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Maribyrnong local government area. West Footscray recorded a population of 11,729 at the . ...

, and was rushed to nearby Footscray Hospital but was dead on arrival. He received a state funeral and was cremated. Ern Shepherd Reserve in

Maidstone Maidstone is the largest town in Kent, England, of which it is the county town. Maidstone is historically important and lies 32 miles (51 km) east-south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the centre of the town, linking it wi ...

and the Shepherd Bridge, which carries

Footscray Road Footscray may refer to: Victoria, Australia * Footscray, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne ** Footscray railway station ** Footscray Town Hall ** Footscray Football Club, the legal name of an Australian rules football club currently branded as Wes ...

over the

Maribyrnong River The Maribyrnong River is a perennial river of the Port Phillip catchment, located in the northwestern suburbs of Melbourne, in the Australian state of Victoria. Course The Maribyrnong River draws its headwaters from near Mount Macedon within ...

, are named for him.

References

, - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Shepherd, Ernie 1901 births 1958 deaths Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Victoria Members of the Victorian Legislative Assembly People from Bendigo Leaders of the Opposition in Victoria (Australia) 20th-century Australian politicians