He was born in Fremantle in Western Australia to blacksmith William Stephen and Vera May Pyke.
He attended local state schools and became a timber worker and locomotive engineman before serving in the Royal Australian Air Force from 1942 to 1946.
He was a traffic officer from 1946 to 1947 and a dairy farmer in 1948 before moving to Pakenham, where he was the foreman at a food factory from 1950 to 1952.
In 1953 he was granted land at Meredith as a soldier settler, and he became a small seeds producer.
He remained active in the local community and was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 1999.