Biography

Ben Mason is a West Australian who went to the United Aborigines' Mission School at Mount Margaret, near Kalgoorlie, till he was 16. He worked on a sheep station for three years and then in a factory at Perth for 18 months. While in Perth, he worked for the Western Australian Wire Netting Company and joined night classes at the Technical College to study English and Mechanics. He felt a desire to be a preacher and from the Church of Christ Pastor of Perth, he heard of the AIM Bible Training Institute in Singleton. He applied, was accepted, and spent three years training there from 1954. The College is a Bible Training Institute for native people and is fully staffed by the Inland Mission. Students are taught ordinary subjects, as many of them left school early. He then undertook further studies under Australian Evangelist, John G Ridley. From there, Ben travelled with fellow student, David Kirk, a Queenslander, going from station to station in New South Wales, working as an evangelist and Bible teacher throughout Australia during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Ben also attended the Australian Institute of Evangelism at Wollongong for a year. In 1958, he was the main speaker at the Easter Convention in Brookton, WA. According to Thomas Street, a UAM missionary from Gnowangerup, it was Mason’s ministry that challenged him to start a Bible college in WA. Street was also inspired by the comments of some Aboriginal people who said, ‘If he [Mason] can preach like that with Bible training, why could not some of us do the same?’ Street left the Brookton Convention, motivated and determined to make moves towards establishing a Bible Institute. In the meantime, Mason continued with his evangelistic and teaching ministry. At the beginning of 1966, he and his wife Bernice, whom he married in 1964 and who also came from the Goldfields region of WA, took over the church ministry that Cedric and Margaret Jacobs had pioneered in Perth. In 1968, the Masons resigned from their work in Perth to enable Bernice to attend the UAM Bible Training Institute in Gnowangerup. Mason worked in various jobs in Gnowangerup to support his family and continued his evangelistic and teaching ministry throughout the state. In 1966–67, the young leaders were busy in their respective ministries. In Perth, Ben and Bernice Mason were pastoring the fellowship and developing the ministry that Cedric and Margaret Jacobs had begun.

In 1978, Ben Mason was awarded an MBE (Member of the British Empire) "For service to Aboriginals". In 1986, he ministered in Alice Springs, returning to Adelaide in 1988. He organised the annual Central Australian Aboriginal Christian Convention in Alice Springs. From this time until he died, Mason continued preaching on a semi-retired basis, travelling to various parts of Australia and even attending a conference in England. He spent the last years of his life with his children and grandchildren, knowing in his heart his homecoming was near, encouraging them to serve the Lord.

In 2004, Ben and Bernice's daughter, Andrea, was the first Aboriginal woman to lead an Australian political party in a federal election when she stood as Family First’s No.1 candidate for a South Australian senate seat. In 1988, Andrea Mason graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Aboriginal Affairs and Public Administration from the then-South Australian Institute of Technology. She spent two years in Canberra at the Australian Institute of Sport on a netball scholarship. She later returned to study and completed her Bachelor of Law in 2002 at the University of Adelaide. She was Telstra Australia's Business Woman of the Year in 2016. In 2017 she was NT's Australian of the Year and Alice Springs' Centralian Citizen of the Year. She is a Commissioner in the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disabilities. In 2017, she was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of the University of Adelaide for her outstanding contribution to Aboriginal, Australian and international communities through her commitment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice. In August 2018, she was awarded an Order of Australia for Service to the Aboriginal Community of the Northern Territory.