Tom Cleave Stott CBE (6 June 1899 – 21 October 1976) spent 37 years as an independent member of the South Australian House of Assembly, from 1933 to 1970. He served as Speaker of the House from 1962 to 1965 for the Tom Playford LCL government and 1968 to 1970 for the Steele Hall LCL government, both times in exchange for his confidence and supply vote to form minority governments.

Born in Norwood, South Australia, Stott completed primary school and began working for his father on their 2225 hectare wheat farm near Mindarie, in the Murray Mallee region of South Australia, while continuing his education through Workers Educational Association of South Australia (WEA) classes and extensive reading.

Stott showed great interest in the problems facing his fellow wheat farmers and joined the newly formed Country Party in 1920. As President of his local branch, Stott began to raise his profile around the electorate and in farming circles, helping to found the Farmers Protection Association in 1929, the South Australian Wheatgrowers Protection Association (SAWPA) in 1930 and the Australian Wheatgrowers Federation (AWF) in 1931. He was also appointed General Secretary of each of these organisations.

Stott was considering seeking Country Party preselection for his local Electoral district of Albert at the 1933 election when it was announced that the Country Party would merge with the urban based Liberal Federation to form the Liberal and Country League (LCL). He opposed the move, fearing both that the rural prerogative of the Country Party would be diminished and that his preselection may become more difficult. His fears were partly realised when he lost LCL pre-selection; Stott promptly resigned from the party to run as an independent.

Stott was given little chance of winning. However, his standing within the influential wheat farming community in Albert, his Masonic connections, and his vocal opposition to the Country Party/Liberal Federation merger led to his election. He soon proved to be a thorn in the side of the newly elected LCL government of Richard Layton Butler, being dubbed the "Farmer's Champion" due to his vocal support of Great Depression affected farmers. Given that the state's ALP remained ineffective and torn by internecine feuding after Lionel Hill's unpopular premiership, Stott was considered by the LCL to be "a greater nuisance than the whole of the Opposition put together".^{[citation needed]}

Upon his election in 1933, Stott was forced to resign from his Secretariat position with SAWPA; but he retained his role with the AWF. He also helped found the Primary Producers Council of Australia (the antecedent of the National Farmers' Federation) in 1934 and continued to play a leading role within that organisation. This influence within these important primary industry bodies allowed Stott to build a power base for himself that assisted with his continued re-election over the next three decades.

In addition to his parliamentary work on rural issues, such as successfully introducing legislation to secure a (high) stable price for wheat and to enable bulk handling of grain, Stott also proved himself to be adept at championing prickly social issues, including introducing a successful Private Member's Bill to reduce the period a divorce could be granted in the case of desertion from five to three years. This success led the government to approach Stott to introduce other controversial social issue legislation that the LCL supported but did not want to introduce. The public recognised this, and many people who approached Stott for assistance were not in his electorate.

Stott was comfortably re-elected at the 1938 South Australian election in the newly formed Electoral district of Ridley (following the division of Albert into two single electoral districts). He was one of 14 independents in the chamber. The independents as a grouping won 40 percent of the primary vote, more than either of the major parties. Stott was the de facto leader of the independent caucus within parliament. The incumbent LCL government only held 15 of 39 seats, which led to uncertainty over which party, if any, could form government. This confusion led Stott, as the most experienced and famous of the Independent MPs, to believe that he could become Premier of South Australia himself. He failed to gain the support of sufficient independents and LCL members to achieve this; but the LCL government was forced to rely on his support far more than its members would have liked.