John Stephen (1798-1854)

Biography
FUNERAL OF THE LATE JOHN STEPHEN, ESQ.—The deceased had been about fourteen years in this colony, having imigrated from Sydney. He was a brother of the present Sir Alfred Stephen, Chief Justice in that country. He was the earliest created alderman for the city of Melbourne, and had retained his rank from the time our Municipal Corporation was first instituted. He has represented in that Council the burgesses of Bourke and Gipps' wards ; and was an alderman of the former ward at the time of his death. His funeral, which took place yesterday, was attended by several members of the legal profession, the present Mayor, the Ex-Mayor, a goodly number of Freemasons, of which fraternity the deceased was one of the oldest members in the colony, Messrs. John Matthew Smith, Peter Davis, George Hayward, Alderman Clowes, Councillors Vaughan, Walsh, and Lane, and the heads of the various public departments of the Corporation. The Town Clerk, Mr. Kerr, did not join in the funeral cortege. The hearse moved from the private residence of the deceased, at St. Kilda, precisely at two o'clock, and was met by the mourners, assembled on Prince's Bridge, abont three. The procession then moved in the direction of the new cemetery, where the body was interred according to the rites of the Church of England. We may add that the deceased was in his fifty-fourth year ; and that he leaves a widow, with two children, to lament his loss. Mr. John Stephen was well known as a Police Court practitioner in Melbourne ; and it is in the remembrance of some of our oldest citizens that he was generally regarded as the " Tormentor of the Bench."

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