Sir Henry Edward Bolte GCMG (20 May 1908 – 4 January 1990) was an Australian politician. He was the 38th and longest serving Premier of Victoria.

Henry Bolte was born in Ballarat, the son of a publican of German descent (the family name was pronounced Bol-tee). He was to spend the first 24 years of his life (apart from three years at boarding school) in the small western district town of Skipton. He was educated at Skipton primary school and Ballarat Grammar School: he was the last Victorian Premier not to attend a university. After working in various manual jobs he married Edith Elder in 1934 and bought a small farm at Bamganie near Meredith, where he lived for the rest of his life, running sheep and cattle.

In 1940 Bolte joined the Australian Army and served as a sergeant with a training regiment until 1945. After the war he returned to farming and became active in the newly-formed Liberal Party. At the 1945 election he stood unsuccessfully for the seat of Hampden in the Victorian Legislative Assembly, but in 1947 he stood again and was elected.

Ronald Joseph Ryan (21 February 1925 – 3 February 1967) was the last person to be executed in Australia. Ryan was found guilty of shooting and killing prison officer George Hodson during an escape from Pentridge Prison, Victoria in 1965. The hanging of Ryan gave rise to some of the largest public protests ever seen in the history of Australia and led to abolition of the death penalty in the country.

Ronald Edmond Thompson was born on 21 February 1925 at the Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne's inner suburb of Carlton, to John Ronald Ryan and Cecilia Thompson (née Young). At the time Ryan's father was not married to his mother. Cecilia already had a son with her first husband George Harry Thompson and was living with John Ryan. Cecilia and George had separated in 1915 when George left to fight in the Great War. The relationship never resumed. Cecilia met John Ryan while working as a nurse in Woods Point where he was suffering lung disease. They formed a relationship in 1924 and later married in 1929, after Thompson's death in 1927 by falling from a tram and getting hit by a car. Ryan then adopted the name Ronald Edmond Ryan. In 1936 Ryan was confirmed in the Catholic Church. He took as his confirmation name Joseph, becoming Ronald Edmond Joseph Ryan. He did not like Edmond and from then on used "Ronald Joseph Ryan".