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DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALIAN BIOGRAPHYAngus and Robertson--1949Ha-HeMain Page and
Index of Individuals
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HACKETT, SIR JOHN WINTHROP (1848-1916),journalist and public benefactor, |
was the eldest child of the Rev. J. W. Hackett, M.A., and his wife, Jane, a daughter of Henry Monck-Mason, LL.D. He was born in the county of Dublin, Ireland, on 4 February 1848 and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated B.A. in 1871 and M.A. in 1874. He was called to the Irish bar, but almost at once emigrated to Sydney, where he was called to the New South Wales bar in 1875. He took up journalism and contributed to the Sydney Morning Herald, but in the following year went to Melbourne to become vice-principal and tutor in law, logic and political economy, at Trinity College. In 1880 he was a candidate for Normanby at an election for the legislative assembly as an advanced liberal, but was so badly defeated that he lost his deposit. At a later election he was opposed to (Sir) John Madden (q.v.) and this time lost by only a small margin. In 1882 he resigned his positions at Trinity College and went to Western Australia. He became a squatter in the Gascoyne district, but his first season was a bad one and he decided to give up the land. He joined forces with Charles Harper, the proprietor of the West Australian, and very soon his influence on this paper began to be felt. The Western Mail was established in 1885 and both papers became prosperous. In 1887 Hackett became editor of the West Australian and strongly advocated responsible government. Western Australia received its constitution in 1890, and Forrest (q.v.) selected Hackett as the first man to be asked to join the nominee legislative council. The population of the colony was still under 50,000 but it was beginning to rise, and the discovery of gold accelerated this very much. The papers grew with the population and became very valuable properties. Hackett as editor was writing a daily leading article, and was also the business manager. In 1894 he was elected to the legislative council as representative of the South-western province and held this seat until his death. He had been a delegate to the 1891 federal convention, he was also a delegate in 1897, and was appointed a member of the constitutional committee. He was asked to join more than one ministry, but had to decline as it was impossible for him to add to the work he was already doing. He was also of opinion that as a newspaper editor he would no longer be able to speak with the same freedom if he were in office. He advocated women's suffrage, and Western Australia was one of the earliest countries to give women the vote. He also strongly supported Forrest in his development policy, in the building of the pipe line to the goldfields, and the making of Fremantle harbour. He was interesting himself very much in the Perth public library, museums, and national gallery of which he became president, and also in the proposed university. He was a prominent member of the Church of England holding the offices of registrar of the diocese and chancellor of St George's cathedral. He declined a knighthood in 1902 but accepted it in 1911, and two years later was created K.C.M.G. The university was opened in 1913 with Hackett as its first chancellor, and he gave it its first substantial private contribution when he endowed the chair of agriculture. His partner, Charles Harper, had died in 1912, and Hackett was now in complete control of their papers. He went on working to the day of his death. His health began to fail in 1915 and he took a trip to the eastern states which appeared to have benefited him. He, however, died suddenly on 19 February 1916. He married in 1905 Deborah Drake-Brockman who survived him with four daughters and a son. He was given the honorary degree of LL.D. by Trinity College Dublin in 1902. Under his will a bequest to the Church of England paid for the building of St George's College, the first residential college within the university. The residue of his estate went to the university which received the sum of �425,000. �200,000 of this with accrued interest was used for the erection of a group of buildings which include Winthrop Hall and the student's building, Hackett Hall. Another �200,000 provides scholarships, bursaries and other financial help for deserving students.
Hackett was a fine example of the successful business man who was willing to give his time and money for the encouragement of things of the mind and spirit. He was a clear and able speaker, a wise and benevolent man who believed in morality, humanity, and the spread of knowledge. A highly strung man he crammed an enormous amount of both public and private work into his life of 68 years.
Burke's Peerage, etc., 1916; Melbourne University Calendars, 1876-82; The West Australian, 21 and 22 February 1916; The Argus Melbourne, 21 February 1916; H. Colebatch, A Story of a Hundred Years; Calendar of the University of Western Australia, 1939.
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HADDON, FREDERICK WILLIAM (1839-1906),journalist, |
was born at Croydon, England, on 8 February 1839. He was well-educated and became assistant-secretary of the Statistical Society of London and of the Institute of Actuaries. He resigned these positions in 1863 to accept an engagement with the Argus, Melbourne, and arriving in December was soon afterwards made sub-editor. When the Australasian was established he became its first editor, and in January 1867 was made editor of the Argus while still in his twenty-eighth year. It was a period of great developments in Victoria, and under Haddon's editorship the Argus, while distinctly conservative served a most useful purpose in advocating the claims of the primary producers, and endeavouring to keep protective duties within reasonable bounds. It fought with success for non-political control of government departments and purity of administration, with the result that Victoria set a high standard among the colonies in these matters. When Berry (q.v.) and Pearson (q.v.) went as an embassy to the British parliament in 1879, Haddon, who was visiting England in that year, was asked by some of their opponents to set the facts of the controversy before the "government, parliament and press of Great Britain". He compiled a pamphlet which was printed in London, The Constitutional Difficulty in Victoria. This was sent to all the members of the British parliament and to the press. He also personally interviewed leading statesmen and editors, and probably was a strong influence on the failure of the mission. There was not really, however, a strong case for British interference. On his return Haddon slipped unobtrusively back into his editorial chair. He was of a dispassionate nature and set a high standard in the discussion of public matters. The Argus fought well for federation, which had practically become certain when Haddon in 1898 resigned his editorship to take up the important task of representing the Edward Wilson Estate on the managemerit of the Argus and Australasian. He died at Melbourne on 7 March 1906. He was twice married (1) to a daughter of J. C. King and (2) to Alice Good who survived him with a daughter by the first marriage.
Haddon was an even-tempered, honourable and courteous man, who appreciated good writing and was always ready to encourage it. He refused as an editor to be affected by popular excitement, and though his paper was on occasions criticized for not taking a stronger stand, he probably did all that could be done when it is remembered how strong the remarkable personality of Syme (q.v.) had made the Age, which for a great part of the period was issued at a lower price than the Argus, and had a much larger circulation.
The Argus, 7 March 1906; P. Mennell, The Dictionary of Australasian Biography; The Constitutional Difficulty in Victoria.
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HAINES, WILLIAM CLARK (1807-1866),first premier of Victoria, |
was born in England in 1807, the son of a London surgeon. He followed his father's profession, but came to Victoria during the eighteen-forties and engaged in farming in the Geelong district. He was made a magistrate, and in 1851 La Trobe (q.v.) nominated him as a member of the legislative council. He resigned a year later but was elected for South Grant in 1853. He was appointed colonial secretary in 1854, and on the establishment of responsible government became premier and chief secretary in the first Victorian cabinet on 28 November 1855. He was elected to the legislative assembly in October 1856 and his ministry remained in power until March 1857. The O'Shannassy (q.v.) ministry which took its place lasted for only seven weeks, and Haines again became premier until March 1858. After his resignation he spent over two years in Europe, and returning in October 1860 was elected to the legislative assembly for Portland. He made a coalition with O'Shannassy in November 1861, and became treasurer in his ministry until June 1863. He lost his seat at the 1864 general election and in August 1865 became member for the Eastern Provinces in the legislative council. He died on 3 February 1866. Though he brought in manhood suffrage Haines was essentially a conservative. He was not a good speaker, and though a good administrator he could scarcely be called a man of great ability. The probity of his life earned the respect of everyone, and his dignified and courteous manner helped to give him a conspicuous place in the early days of responsible government.
The Argus and The Age, Melbourne, 5 February 1866; H. G. Turner, A History of the Colony of Victoria; J. H. Heaton, The Australian Dictionary of Dates.
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HALE, MATTHEW BLAGDEN (1811-1895),first Anglican bishop of Perth, |
third son of R. H. B. Hale and his wife, Lady Theodosia Bourke, a daughter of the 3rd Earl of Mayo, was born at Alderly, England, in 1811. He belonged to the same family as the celebrated chief justice, Sir Matthew Hale. Educated at Cambridge, he graduated B.A. in 1835, M.A. in 1838, and D.D. in 1857. He was ordained deacon in 1836 and priest in 1837. After being a curate at Tresham and Wotton-under-Edge he became perpetual curate of Stroud, a parish of 8000 inhabitants from 1839 to 1845. In 1847 he met Augustus Short (q.v.), bishop of Adelaide, who asked him to go to Adelaide as his archdeacon. They sailed to Australia in the same vessel and arrived at Adelaide in December 1847. Hale was interested in the aboriginal problem, and in 1850 succeeded in obtaining a grant from the government to assist in founding an institution for the education of aborigines at Poonindie. One part of the scheme was the management of a farm with aboriginal labour. Hale as superintendent kept a watchful eye on the institution until he was appointed bishop of Perth in 1856. After he left difficulties arose, but these were surmounted and the institution was conducted with success for many years.
Before taking up his new duties Hale visited England and was consecrated bishop of Perth at the chapel of Lambeth Palace on 25 July 1857. In this year he published a small volume, The Transportation Question or Why Western Australia should be made a Reformatory Colony instead of a Penal Settlement. Soon after his arrival at Perth he founded a school known as "Bishop Hale's school", which had many pupils who afterwards followed distinguished careers in Western Australia. Hale worked with success during the 18 years he was at Perth and in 1875 was translated to the see of Brisbane. He retired in March 1885, returned to England and published The Aborigines of Australia, being an Account of the Institution for their Education at Poonindie. He died on 3 April 1895. He married (1) Sophia Clode who died in 1845 leaving him with two young children and (2) Sabina Molloy. Hale was a kindly man of devoted piety much respected and liked both at Perth and Brisbane. He was one of the early men to understand that the aborigines would respond to proper treatment.
P. Mennell, The Dictionary of Australasian Biography; The Brisbane Courier, 6 April 1895; J. S. Battye, The Cyclopedia of Western Australia, vol. II, p. 84; J. G. Wilson, Western Australia's Centenary, p. 145; M. B. Hale, The Aborigines of Australia; Crockford's Clerical Directory, 1892.
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HALES, ALFRED ARTHUR GREENWOOD (1860-1936),novelist, |
was born at Kent Town, Adelaide, in 1860, the son of F. G. Hales a wood-turner. He had the ordinary primary education of his time, and after being apprenticed to a carpenter began a wandering career by going to the country. For years he worked as a farm hand and rouseabout and became a magnificent rider. He occasionally contributed to country newspapers, never staying long in one place, until he came to Broken Hill, where he was a mining reporter for some years. There he wrote his first book, The Wanderings of a Simple Child, which was published in 1890. This went into a third edition in the following year. Hales then visited America and England and returning to Adelaide started the Adelaide Standard. He next went to the goldfields in Western Australia and started the Coolgardie Mining Review. A fire destroyed his plant and he was penniless, but after working for some time as a dry-blower he went to Boulder City and with his brother Frank started the Boulder Star. He stood as a labour candidate for parliament but was defeated, and when the South African war broke out became a war correspondent for the London Daily News. For a time he wrote fearlessly and critically of the way in which the British were conducting their operations, but was wounded and made a prisoner by the Boers, and was not released until the end of the war.
Hales wrote a book on his experiences, Campaign Pictures of War in South Africa, which was published in 1900, and in the following year appeared his first novel, Driscoll, King of Scouts. He made a success with McGlusky, published in 1902, afterwards followed by a long series of stories with this Australian of Scotch descent as the hero. Hales was not content to be merely a writer of fiction, he went to Macedonia and fought in a rebellion against the Turks in 1903. This was followed by experience as a war correspondent in the Russo-Japanese war, and in the following years much lecturing in England, South Africa, Australia and South America. Wherever there was a mining field Hales visited it, and in South America he made a special study of the agricultural and pastoral possibilities of that continent. When the 1914-18 war began he endeavoured to enlist but was too much over age. He worked as a war correspondent in France, and then went to Italy, where meeting General Garibaldi, he endeavoured to join the Italian army. Garibaldi, who was born in Australia, tried to help him without success, and Hales again worked as a correspondent. In 1918 he published Where Angels Fear to Tread, a series of able sketches on matters arising out of the war. After peace came Hales lived mostly in England and wrote a large number of novels, of which about 60 are listed in Miller's Australian Literature. Many of these had large circulations; of the McGlusky series of some 20 volumes about 2,000,000 copies were sold. Hales published a volume of verse, Poems and Ballads, in 1909, which is not important as poetry, and he also wrote some unpublished plays. He died in England on 29 December 1936. He was married twice (1) to Miss Pritchard of Adelaide who died in 1911, and (2) to Jean Reid. There were four sons and a daughter by the first marriage.
Hales was a big, kindly man known to everyone as "Smiler" Hales. He took part in and was much interested in every form of sport, and exemplified a philosophy of courage and cheerfulness. He was a good journalist and a good teller of tales, who believed in wholesome decent living and was not afraid to say so. His My Life of Adventure, 1918, and Broken Trails, 1931, give interesting and vivid pages from his life.
The Times, 30 December 1936; The Advertiser, Adelaide, 31 December 1936; E. Morris Miller, Australian Literature.
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HALFORD, GEORGE BRITTON (1824-1910),physiologist, founder of the first medical school in Australia, |
second son of James Halford, was born in Sussex, England, on 26 November 1824. He began studying medicine in 1842, became a member of the Royal College of Physicians in 1851, and of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1852. He obtained his doctorate of medicine at St Andrews in 1854. After practising at Liverpool he was in 1857 appointed lecturer in anatomy at the Grosvenor Place school of medicine, London. When applications were called for the professorship of anatomy, physiology and pathology at the university of Melbourne in 1862 he was described as "one of the most distinguished experimental physiologists of the day". There were other good candidates, but Halford was appointed, and he arrived in Melbourne on 22 December 1862. A medical curriculum had been drawn up by the council for which the vice-chancellor, Dr I. A. Brownless, was believed to have been largely responsible. This course was longer by a year than any systematic course of medical education then existing in Great Britain or Ireland. Thirty years were to pass before the general medical council insisted on a minimum five year course in the United Kingdom.
Halford began with only three students which in the next 15 years increased to about 70. His task indeed was only made possible by the comparatively small classes in those early years. He was offered the fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians in 1870 but never enrolled. He had in the meantime done some research work in comparative anatomy, and had begun his work on the poison of snakes which he continued for many years. As he approached 60 he began to feel the strain of his combined offices, but the appointment of a brilliant young assistant, H. B. Allen (q.v.), who became lecturer in anatomy and pathology in 1882, must have made his position easier. Allen became professor of descriptive and surgical anatomy and pathology in 1883, and Halford took the title of professor of general anatomy, physiology and histology. Though easing down in his work to some extent, he was still a great influence with the students. Sir Richard Stawell (q.v.), who graduated in 1898, has testified that "there was something always really 'great' about the old professor; and when he discussed with us the records of his original work of long ago, there was to be got from his lectures something splendid and even inspiring" (address at the Masonic Hall, 1 May 1914). In September 1896 Halford was given leave of absence on account of ill-health until the end of 1897. This leave was afterwards extended and he did not become emeritus professor until 1900. After his retirement he lived at Beaconsfield near Melbourne and was much interested in the development of coal-mining in South Gippsland. He celebrated his golden wedding in 1907 and died at Inverloch, Victoria, on 27 May 1910. He was survived by three daughters and six sons, two of whom entered the medical profession. In 1928 his family founded the Halford oration at the Australian Institute of Anatomy, Canberra. A list of Halford's contributions to medical literature will be found in the Medical Journal of Australia for 19 January 1929, page 71. His most brilliant research work was on the heart. He began research in other directions which was never completed. It was impossible to spare much time in his earlier days at the university, and when his retirement came it was too late. It was, however, fortunate that a man of such great ability should have been willing to come to Australia and set a standard at its first medical school that commanded respect from its initiation, and was an inspiration for the schools afterwards established.
W. A. Osborne, Medical Journal of Australia, 19 January 1929, p. 64; Sir H. B. Allen, A History of the Medical School, University of Melbourne Medical School Jubilee; Sir R. Stawell, The Medical Journal of Australia, 3 January 1931, p. l; University of Melbourne Calendars; The Argus, 30 May. 1910; Men of the Time in Australia, 1878.
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HALL, BENJAMIN (1838-1865),bushranger, |
was born at Breeza station, New South Wales, on 8 March 1838. He bought a small property, married Bridget Walsh, and was doing well. His wife, however, eloped with another man, and shortly afterwards Hall was charged with highway robbery and arrested. There appears to have been no direct evidence against him, but he evidently fell under suspicion because he had known Frank Gardiner (q.v.), and was seen at the local races with a man of bad character. Bail was refused, but after having been confined for some weeks he was tried and acquitted. Returning to his homestead he sold it for a small sum, and shortly afterwards was arrested a second time on a charge of having taken part in the Engowra escort robbery, but was discharged. Meeting Gardiner again he fell under his influence, joined the gang, and after Gardiner disappeared worked with Dunn and Gilbert. There was bloodshed sometimes, but there appears to be no record of Hall having killed anyone. When the Gundagai to Yass mail was robbed Gilbert shot a policeman, and not long afterwards Hall left his associates and went into hiding. He was tracked and surrounded by police about 12 miles from Forbes, and was shot on 5 May 1865.
Before Hall went on the road he had a good character as a steady, industrious and good-hearted young man, and after he had been shot and brought in by the police people remarked on his handsome face, and the absence of anything forbidding about it. When his wife left him she took his young son with her and Hall appears to have become desperate. His name often occurs in the old bush ballads, and a kind of Robin Hood legend grew up among his sympathizers.
"He never robbed a needy man
His records sure will show
How staunch and loyal to his mates,
How manly to the foe.
. . . . .
"They found his place of ambush then,
And cautiously they crept
And savagely they murdered him
While still their victim slept."No more he'll mount his gallant steed
To range the mountains high:
Poor widows' friend in poverty,
Our bold Ben Hall, goodbye."
George E. Boxall, The Story of the Australian Bushrangers; B. Cronin and Arthur Russell, Bushranging Silhouettes; Jack Bradshaw, The True History of the Australian Bushrangers; The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 May, 1865; A. B. Paterson, Old Bush Songs.
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HALL, EDWARD SMITH (1786-1860),political reformer, |
son of Smith Hall, bank manager, and his wife, Jane Drewry, was born in London on 28 March 1786. He was well educated and as a young man was interested in social and religious work, which probably brought him under the notice of William Wilberforce. He arrived at Sydney on 10 October 1811 with a letter from Robert Peel, under-secretary of state, which asked that assistance in settling should be given Hall, and stated that he had been strongly recommended by Wilberforce and others. He was given a grant of land, but in October 1814 Macquarie mentioned that he had "commenced merchant at Sydney", and he was associated in this year with S. Lord (q.v.) and others in the promotion of the New Zealand Trading Company. He had additional grants of land made to him in 1815, 1817, 1821 and 1822, but it would appear that in the early years at least, Hall was making little profit from them. In 1818 an application had been made in England that he should be permitted to practise as an attorney, which was not granted. It was probably as a result of this application that Hall was appointed coroner of the territory in February 1820, but he did not hold this position for long, and in 1821 went with 10 assigned servants to the land granted him near Lake Bathurst. In 1826 he was back in Sydney, and on 19 May of that year published the first number of the Monitor, at first a weekly but afterwards published twice a week. It exercised a strong influence on public opinion in connexion with the existing form of government. It stood for trial by jury and a popular legislature, and it condemned in unmeasured terms the oppression of convicts, public immorality on the part of officers, and even the conduct of the governor himself. Actions for libel were brought against Hall, and, having been tried by a jury of military men nominated by the crown, he was convicted, imprisoned and fined. He had to defend seven separate actions, the fines amounted to several hundred pounds, and his terms of imprisonment totalled over three years. However, on 6 November 1830, on the occasion of the accession of William IV, Governor Darling (q.v.) issued a free pardon to Hall. But some six months before, Hall had written to Sir George Murray a letter in which he made 14 specific charges against Darling, and he had succeeded in enlisting the aid of Joseph Hume, who took up his cause in the house of commons. On 1 October 1831 Hall stated in the Monitor that Hume had informed him that Darling was to be recalled. The governor himself considered his recall was due to Hall's efforts, as he immediately wrote to Lord Goderich that anyone reading the Monitor would see that Hall's "triumph is complete". Goderich, writing to Governor Bourke (q.v.) on 24 March 1832, denied that Hall's representations had affected the question of the recall of Darling, but there can be little doubt that it had a strong influence on it. Hall continued to conduct his paper now called the Sydney Monitor until 1838, when he transferred to the Australian, which stopped appearing in 1848. He was subsequently connected with Parkes's (q.v.) Empire and towards the end of his life was given a position in the colonial secretary's office, Sydney. which he held until his death on 18 September 1860. Hall had other interests besides those mentioned. He was one of the founders of the New South Wales Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and Benevolence, which started in May 1813, and was its first secretary; he was also secretary and a leading member of the Australian Patriotic Association. He married (1) Charlotte, daughter of Hugh Victor Hall and (2) Miss Holmes. There were two sons and six daughters by the first marriage, and a son and a daughter by the second.
To Darling, Hall was merely a dangerous agitator whose actions must be stopped for the good of the state. No doubt a case could be made for Darling's conduct, but on one occasion at least it was of a kind that cannot be defended. Hall applied to be allowed to rent land adjoining his own, and his application was refused, not on any legal ground, but because he was the editor of the Monitor. Hall fought throughout with great ability, possibly not always wisely, considering that he had a young family to care for; but as he said himself afterwards "I was young, generous and disinterested, but imprudent. I am now a wiser man, but not a better one". In August 1891 Sir Henry Parkes speaking of the early friends of freedom in Australia said: "The name I mentioned first Edward Smith Hall belonged to a man of singularly pure and heroic disposition . . . he met the greatest form of aggressive power we ever experienced in this country, and he paid the price of resistance to it by all that kind of punishmerit which follows a man who tries to preserve the public spirit and awaken a love of liberty in a community." In spite of Parkes's eulogy, Hall's name fell into obscurity, until the publication of an article on him in the Australian Encyclopaedia, which was followed by Mr Justice Ferguson's more complete account read before the Royal Australian Historical Society.
J. A. Ferguson, Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. XVII, pp. 163-200; Historical Records of Australia, ser I, vols. VII, VIII, X, XII to XVIII; G. B. Barton, Literature in New South Wales.
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HALL, GEORGE WILLIAM LOUIS MARSHALL (1862-1915),musician, |
son of a surgeon and grandson of Marshall Hall the distinguished physiologist, was born in London in March 1862. He was educated at the Blackheath proprietary school and studied languages on the continent. He also studied music at Berlin, and at the Royal College of Music, London. For a period he taught languages and music at Newton Abbot School, and at Wellington College, and in 1890 was appointed the first Ormond professor of music at the university of Melbourne. He began his work early in 1891, and at once decided that he could do little of value unless a conservatorium of music were attached to the university. There was no financial provision for a conservatorium and it was not possible to start one until 1895, when Hall undertook the responsibility of it. It actually paid its way from the beginning. He was an inspiring teacher and gained the unswerving loyalty of all his pupils. From 1896 Hall published four volumes of verse, To Irene (1896), Hymn to Sydney (1897), A Book of Canticles (1897), and Hymns Ancient and Modern (1898), the last volume in particular offending the sensibilities of many religious people. He was attacked by the Argus newspaper and much controversy followed. It was decided in 1900, on the casting vote of the chairman of the university council, that Hall, whose second term of appointment for a period of five years expired at the end of the current year, should not be reappointed. Hall then started a rival conservatorium known as the Albert Street conservatorium, and conducted it with success. He had begun a series of orchestral concerts in 1893, and for a period of nearly 20 years carried them on, keeping a very high musical standard. He was an enthusiastic and inspiring conductor, painstaking and sensitive, especially successful in his renderings of Beethoven and Wagner. About 1912 Hall went to London, and in 1914 was offered his old position of Ormond professor at the university of Melbourne. He took up his duties again at the beginning of 1915, but died on 18 July, following an operation for appendicitis. He was married twice and left a widow, a daughter by the first marriage, and a son by the second. In addition to the books mentioned, Hall was the author of two tragedies in verse Aristodemus (c. 1900), and Bianca Capello (1906). These are now so rare as to be practically unprocurable. He composed many songs, three operas, the music for productions of Alcestis and The Trojan Women, and much chamber music. A symphony by him was played at the Queen's Hall, London, in 1907 conducted by Sir Henry Wood, and an opera, Stella, was performed in Melbourne. Though not entirely uninfluenced by the work of Wagner, Brahms, and Puccini, Hall's compositions had pronounced individuality and sincerity. It was as a teacher, however, enthusiastic and free from pedantry, and as an inspiring orchestral conductor that Hall did his most important work, and the value of his influence on the musical life of Melbourne can hardly be over-stated. Personally he was tall, dark, witty and humorous, intolerant of pretence and humbug, and loved by his friends.
The Age and The Argus, Melbourne, 19 July 1915; Sir Ernest Scott, A History of the University of Melbourne; personal knowledge.
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HALL, LINDSAY BERNARD (1859-1935), his first name was never used,artist, |
was born at Liverpool, England, on 28 December 1859. The son of a Liverpool broker of the same family as Captain Basil Hall, writer of books of travel, he was well educated and grew up in an atmosphere of culture. He studied painting at South Kensington, Antwerp and Munich, and worked for some 10 years in London. He exhibited at the Royal Academy and was one of the original members of the New English Art Club. On the death of G. F. Folingsby (q.v.) in 1891 he was appointed director of the national gallery at Melbourne, and began his duties in March 1892. He held the position for 43 years and many of the well-known painters of Australia were trained by him in the gallery painting school. He also acted as adviser to the trustees for purchases for the gallery and art museum, and when the munificent bequest of Alfred Felton (q.v.) was received his responsibilities were much increased. In 1905 he went to England to make purchases under this bequest, and although the amount then placed in his hands was comparatively small, he made better use of what was available than any subsequent adviser of his time. After his return he was expected to advise on everything submitted that might find a place in an art museum and, although he never claimed to be an expert in all these things, he supplemented his knowledge with hard reading and made comparatively few mistakes.
Hall's own paintings were usually interiors, nudes, or paintings of still life. He was often represented at the Victorian Artists' and other societies' exhibitions and held several one-man shows, but he was kept so busily employed as director and adviser, that his paintings had to be done at week ends and during vacations. In February 1934 he again went to London as adviser to the Felton trustees and died there on 14 February 1935. He was married twice (1) in 1894 to Miss E. M. Shuter and (2) in 1912 to Miss G. H. Thomson, who with one son by the first marriage and two sons and a daughter by the second marriage, survived him.
Hall was a tall man of distinguished appearance, courteous but slightly austere in manner, with strong convictions, and little sense of compromise. He was extremely conservative in almost everything from his art to his politics. The only exception was his advocacy of the Baconian theory, afterwards modified to a firm conviction that whether Bacon had any hand in the plays or not, the author was not the man from Stratford. In other matters his appeal was to tradition and the expert. He was a perfectly honest man, he could see no merit in the so-called modern school of painting and he said so. Its followers seemed to him to violate the first principles of art. His own paintings were carefully planned and always well drawn. His colour was not always so good, and this was especially apparent in some of his earlier nudes. The examples of his work in the Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide galleries show him to have been a conscientious and excellent artist. As a teacher his somewhat cold manner, which really came from a kind of shyness, sometimes repelled his pupils in his earlier days, but he mellowed as he grew older. There has been much difference of opinion as to the value of his methods of teaching, but his long roll of distinguished pupils suggests that his insistence on sincerity, truth and good drawing, must have been of great value to them. In any case, Hall's personality was a strong influence for the good of art in his time.
The Argus, Melbourne, 16 February, 1935; Harold B. Herbert, The Star, Melbourne, 16 February 1935; E. La T. Armstrong, The Argus, 23 February 1935; personal knowledge.
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HALL, THOMAS SERGEANT (1858-1915),geologist, |
was born at Geelong on 23 December 1858, the son of Thomas March Hall, a business man in that town. Hall was educated at the Geelong Grammar School where he came under the influence of J. L. Cuthbertson (q.v.). He was a junior master at Wesley College In 1879-80, and then went to Melbourne university, where he took his B.A. degree in 1886 with honours in natural science. This included work in palaeontology under (Sir) Frederick McCoy (q.v.). He was teaching at Girton College, Bendigo, in 1887, but returned to the university and did a three years' course in biology. He took a leading part in the forming of the university science club, and in connexion with it met Dr G. B. Pritchard with whom he was later to do valuable work in geology. He was a successful director of the Castlemaine school of mines from 1890 to 1893, and in the latter year became lecturer in biology at Melbourne university. He held this position until his death but found time for many other activities. In 1899 he published a Catalogue of the Scientific and Technical Periodical Literature in the Libraries of Victoria. A second and enlarged edition, in which he was assisted by Mr E. R. Pitt of the public library, Melbourne, appeared in 1911. He did much valuable work for the Field Naturalists' Club, the Royal Society of Victoria, and the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science. His Victorian Hill and Dale, describing the geology of the country around Melbourne, which was brought out in 1909, is a model book of popular science--written without a trace of scientific jargon; there is in fact scarcely a technical term in its 150 pages. He did not write a large number of papers, but his work on the graptolite rocks of Victoria led to his being made the recipient of the Murchison fund of the Geological Society of London in 1901. He became ill early in 1915, but courageously carried on his work until shortly before his death on 21 December 1915. He married Miss E. L. Hill, who survived him with children. He was given the honorary degree of D.Sc. by Melbourne university in 1908.
Dr Hall was kindly and unselfish, a good example of the hard-working man of science, giving much time to matters of routine, and yet contriving to do original and important work in one or more directions. His work with Dr Pritchard on the tertiary fossiliferous strata of Victoria, and his own work on the graptolite rocks of Victoria give him a permanent place in the history of Australian geology.
W. Baldwin Spencer, Thomas Sergeant Hall, Reprint from the Victorian Naturalist, vol. 32, 1916; F. Chapman, Geological Magazine, 1916; Nature, 2 March 1916; personal knowledge.
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HALL, WALTER AND ELIZA,Walter Russell Hall (1831-1911), man of business, and his wife, Eliza Rowden Hall (1847-1916), public benefactor. |
Walter Russell Hall was born at Kingston, Herefordshire, England, in 1831. He arrived in Sydney on 14 February 1852, practically without capital, and proceeding to the Victorian goldfields worked for some time with little success. For a time he was an agent for the coaching business of Cobb and Co. and about the year 1857 joined James Rutherford (q.v.) and others in taking over this organization in the colony of Victoria. In 1862 lines of coaches were established in New South Wales, and in 1881 a limited company with a capital of �50,000 was formed for Queensland. Of this capital Rutherford supplied �10,000 and Hall �9000. Hall did much successful administrative work in connexion with Cobb and Co., principally in New South Wales where he was in complete control, but, following the extension of the company to Queensland, he became largely interested in the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company, and was a director of it for the closing years of his life after his retirement from Cobb and Co. in 1885. He died at Sydney on 13 October 1911, and was buried at the Melbourne general cemetery. He married in 1874 Eliza Rowden, elder daughter of George Kirk of South Yarra, who came to Melbourne in 1839, and afterwards had pastoral interests in partnership with Richard Goldsbrough (q.v.). From the time of her marriage Mrs Hall lived at Sydney and, taking great interest in social work, continually gave practical evidence of her desire to improve the conditions of people in need. In 1911 Mrs Hall, who had no children, after seeking advice, decided to make a gift of �1,000,000 to her country, to be devoted to the relief of poverty, the advancement of education, the advancement of religion in accordance with the tenets of the Church of England, and for the general benefit of the community. A trust was formed on 24 May 1912, and it was provided that one half of the income should be expended in New South Wales, one fourth in Queensland and one fourth in Victoria. It was also provided that as far as practicable, one third of the income in each state should be expended for the benefit of women and children. Mrs Hall was able to see the operations of her trust for only a few years, as she died at Sydney on 14 February 1916. She was buried beside her husband at Melbourne.
Twenty-five years after the Walter and Eliza Hall Trust had been established it was found that during that period �233,000 had been spent on education, �181,000 on religion, �370,000 in helping women and children and �261,ooo for general purposes. At the universities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, travelling and research fellowships and scholarships had been established, and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Research in pathology and medicine at the Royal Melbourne hospital had proved to be an important benefaction, whose work had attracted grants from other trusts and individuals. The gift made by Mrs Hall was the largest of its kind ever made by any woman in the British Empire, and will remain an enduring monument to a wise and good woman. Portraits of Mr and Mrs Hall by F. McCubbin (q.v.) are at the national gallery, Melbourne.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 15 and 16 February 1916; The "Walter and Eliza Hall Trust--Twenty-five Years in Active Operation; Wm Lees, A History of the Coaching Firm of Cobb and Co.; Trust Deed of the Walter and Eliza Hall Trust.
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HALLORAN, LAURENCE HYNES (c. 1765-1831),writer and early schoolmaster, |
was born about the year 1765. He was stated to be 65 at the time of his death on 8 March 1831. There is some disagreement about his name the Gentleman's Magazine and the British Museum Calalogue both give Hynes as his second name, the Australian Encyclopaedia gives Henry. He habitually signed letters with the initials only. One dispatch from England calls him O'Halloran. Nothing appears to be known of his parents or of his education, but he first came into notice by the publication of two volumes of verse, Odes, Poems and Translations (1790), and Poems on Various Occasions (1791), and probably about this period became master of Alphington Academy near Exeter; one of his pupils was Robert first Baron Gifford who was born in 1779. Halloran afterwards became a chaplain in the navy, and in 1805 was on the Britannia at the battle of Trafalgar. In 1811 he was rector of the grammar school at the Cape of Good Hope and a chaplain to the forces. He interfered in a duel between two officers and was removed to Simon's Town. He then resigned his position as chaplain and published a satire Cap-abilities or South African Characteristics. Proceedings were taken against him and he was sentenced to be banished from the colony. Returning to England, in November 1818 he was charged with forging a frank worth ten-pence, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to seven years transportation.
Halloran arrived in Sydney in 1819, was soon given a ticket of leave, and established a school for "Classical, Mathematical and Commercial Education". When news of this reached London obstacles were put in his way by the English authorities, but Macquarie (q.v.) and Brisbane (q.v.) successively supported him, and he established a high reputation as a teacher. In February 1827 he applied for a grant of land for a free grammar school which he proposed to establish at Sydney. Darling was, however, less sympathetic, and Halloran had great difficulty in providing for his family of nine children. He founded a weekly paper, the Gleaner, of which the first number appeared on 5 April 1827. However, in September, an action against the paper for libel was successful, and its last number came out on 29 September. In 1828 Darling for the sake of his children gave him the office of coroner but he did not keep the position long, and in the same year was in trouble with Archdeacon Scott (q.v.), who objected to Halloran's prefacing some public lectures he was giving with part of the Anglican church service. In 1830 he established a "Memorial Office" the intention being that he should draw up statements for people desiring to bring their grievances before the government. He died at Sydney on 7 March 1831. In addition to the works mentioned Halloran, before leaving England, published four volumes of poems and a play, which are listed in Serle's Bibliography of Australasian Poetry and Verse.
Halloran was a good schoolmaster who honestly endeavoured to re-establish his reputation in Sydney. It was hard on him that his past sins were never allowed to rest. Unfortunately for himself he was of a quarrelsome nature and owed much of his misfortune to this throughout his life. The statement that he had forged his clerical orders is based on a private letter from Henry Hobhouse, under-secretary of state, to Earl Bathurst. But Halloran was not charged with this offence, and in the absence of sworn evidence it would be unjust to assume that the statement was correct. His son, Henry Halloran, born in 1811, became a leading public servant at Sydney and was created C.M.G. in 1878. He was the author of much verse which like his father's was of only mediocre quality. He was well-known in the literary circles of his day, and was a good friend to Kendall (q.v.).
The Gentleman's Magazine, 1818, vol. II, p. 462, 1831, vol. II, pp. 416-7, 482; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. X to XV; G. A. Wood, Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. VIII, pp. 191-3; Debrett's Peerage, etc., 1888.
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HANNAN, PATRICK (c. 1843-1925),discoverer of Kalgoorlie goldfield, |
was born in County Clare, Ireland, about the year 1843. He emigrated to Australia and arrived in Melbourne in 1863. He worked in the mines at Ballarat for some years, and in 1874 went to New Zealand. Returning to Australia in 1880 he was one of the first in the rush at Temora, New South Wales, was afterwards prospecting in Queensland, New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia, and in 1886 was in the Teetulpa rush. In 1889 he went to Western Australia and was one of the pioneers in the Parker's Range district. His fortunes varied for three or four years until in June 1893, with two associates named Flannagan and Shea, Hannan left a party they were with to search for a horse that had been lost. They were then about 50 miles north-east of Coolgardie and during the search accidentally came upon some nuggets. Hannan returned to Coolgardie to apply for a reward claim and the find at once became public property. A large part of the population of Coolgardie immediately left for the new field, which was to become the site of Kalgoorlie and the most important gold-bearing area in Western Australia. Hannan continued to prospect for some years, but eventually retired on a pension from the Western Australia government, and spent his last years in comfort with relations at Brunswick, a suburb of Melbourne. He died on 4 November 1925. A friend who met him not long before his death found him still a striking figure in his old age, with a flowing beard and the keen alert bright eyes of the prospector. He was an exceedingly temperate man, simple in his ways and modest about his powers as a prospector. When he was reminded that his find had probably added �100,000,000 to the wealth of Australia, he at once pointed out that large numbers of other prospectors had been just as capable and worked as hard, only he had had the good fortune to strike a permanent field.
The West Australian, 5 November 1925; J. S. Battye, Western Australia, a History.
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HANSON, ALBERT J. (1866-1914),artist, |
was born at Sydney in 1866. He studied at the Royal Art Society's school and in 1889 went to New Zealand. He founded an art school at Dunedin but returned to Sydney after a short stay. In 1892 "The Low Lispings of the Silvery Waves", a water colour, was purchased by the Sydney gallery, and in the same year Hanson went to London. He was elected a member of the Royal Society of British Artists and in 1993 his "On the New South Wales Coast near Sydney" was on the line at the Royal Academy. He returned to Sydney in 1896, and in 1898 his "Pacific Beaches", an oil, was purchased for the national gallery. In 1905 Hanson was the winner of the Wynne prize. He died in 1914. He was an able landscape painter in both oil and water-colour and is represented in the Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Geelong, Wellington, Auckland, Dunedin, and Christchurch galleries.
W. Moore, The Story of Australian Art; The Studio, vol. 61, p. 50.
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HANSON, SIR RICHARD DAVIES (1805-1876),premier and chief-justice of South Australia, |
was born at London on 6 December 1805. He was the second son of R. Hanson, a fruit merchant and importer, and was educated at a private school in Cambridgeshire. In 1828 he was admitted to practise as an attorney and solicitor, and shortly afterwards became a disciple of Wakefield (q.v.) in connexion with his colonization schemes. He was again associated with Wakefield as one of Lord Durham's secretaries when he went to Canada in 1838, and had a share in the preparation of the famous report. In the house of commons in July 1839 Charles Buller, not wishing to take undeserved credit for the portion of the report that dealt with waste lands and emigration, said: "The merit of this very valuable report was due to Mr Hanson and Mr Wakefield" (R. C. Mills, The Colonization of Australia, p. 269). On the death of Lord Durham in 1840 Hanson emigrated to New Zealand, and at the end of 1841 was appointed crown prosecutor at Wellington. He went to Adelaide in 1846, practised at the bar, and also did journalistic work. He became one of the leading barristers, and in 1851 was appointed advocate-general and member of the legislative council. He framed the first South Australian education act, and also brought in the district councils act of 1852 which formed a stepping stone to responsible government. He drafted the act which brought this about in 1856, and was attorney-general in the first ministry under Finniss (q.v.). Early in 1857 he was elected to the house of assembly as one of the representatives of the city of Adelaide. The first three ministries had a combined life of about 11 months, but in September 1857 Hanson became premier and attorney-general in a ministry which lasted until May 1860, and passed much useful legislation. Among the acts passed were the first patents act, an insolvency act, a partial consolidation of the criminal law, and the Torrens real property act, though he was at first opposed to this measure. He also passed an act legalizing marriage with a deceased wife's sister, the first of its kind in the Empire, but the royal assent was refused on this occasion. In 1861 Hanson was appointed chief justice of South Australia, and proved to be an admirable judge whose summings up were often masterly. It has been suggested that at times he may have had an undue impatience of the forms and rules of law, and that on the very few occasions in which his judgments were reversed by the privy council he may have been deciding as the law ought to have been, rather than as it was. In 1869 he visited England and was knighted by Queen Victoria. He was acting-governor of South Australia from 11 December 1872 to 9 June 1873, and when the university of Adelaide was founded in 1874 he was appointed its first chancellor. He died at Woodhouse near Mount Lofty on 4 March 1876, and was survived by Lady Hanson, a son and four daughters. In his spare time Hanson gave much time to theological studies. His publications include Law in Nature and Other Papers (1865), The Jesus of History (1869), Letters to and from Rome (1869), The Apostle Paul, and the Preaching of Christianity in the Primitive Church (1875).
Hanson had a calm and equable temperament, and as an advocate endeavoured to win over a jury by a clear and concise statement of his case, rising on occasions to eloquence if he feared some injustice might occur. He was a fine constitutional lawyer, a good judge, and in politics a first rate leader of the house, who admirably laid the foundations of legislation in his colony. South Australia owed much to his powerful intellect, and his love of truth and justice, so often evident in his moulding of its future.
The South Australian Register, 6 and 25 March 1876; F. Johns, A Journalist's Jottings; Miss C. H. Spence, The Melbourne Review, October 1876; B. T. Finniss, The Constitutional History of South Australia; E. Hodder, The History of South Australia; P. Mennell, The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.
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HARFORD, LESBIA VENNER (1891-1927),poet, |
daughter of E. J. and Helen Keogh, was born at Brighton, a suburb of Melbourne, on 9 April 1891. She was educated at the Sacr� Coeur school at Malvern, Mary's Mount school at Ballarat, and at the university of Melbourne, where she graduated LL.B. in 1916. Becoming interested in social questions, she obtained work in a clothing factory to obtain first hand knowledge of the conditions under which women worked. She had begun writing verse, and in May 1921 Birth, a small poetry magazine published at Melbourne, gave the whole of one number to a selection from her poems. A severe attack of rheumatic fever while a young child led to a life of delicate health, and her death on 5 July 1927. She married P. Harford in 1919 but had no children. In 1927 three examples of her work were included in Serle's An Australasian Anthology, and in 1941 a small volume The Poems of Lesbia Harford, sponsored by the Commonwealth Literary Fund and published by the Melbourne University Press, revealed a poet of originality and charm.
Nettie Palmer, Foreword, The Poems of Lesbia Harford; information from family; personal knowledge.
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HARGRAVE, LAWRENCE (1850-1915),pioneer in aviation, |
was born in England on 29 January 1850. He was the second son of John Fletcher Hargrave (1815-1885), an English barrister, who came to Australia in 1857, and his wife Ann Hargrave. The elder Hargrave was appointed a district court judge but resigned this position to enter parliament. He was solicitor-general in the Charles Cowper (q.v.) ministry in February 1859, held the same position in the Forster (q.v.) ministry, and was attorney-general in the Robertson (q.v.) ministry from April 1860 to January 1861. He was also the representative of the ministry in the legislative council. In the next ministry under Cowper he held the same offices from January 1861 to July 1863. In the fourth Cowper ministry he was solicitor-general from February to June 1865, when he was appointed a puisne judge of the supreme court. He shortly afterwards became primary judge in equity, and in 1873 first judge of the divorce court. He retired in 1881 and died at Sydney on 23 February 1885.
When his father went to Australia, Lawrence Hargrave remained in England to finish his education at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Kirkby Lonsdale, in Westmoreland. He arrived in Sydney in 1866, but though he had shown ability in mathematics at his English school he did not enter on a university course. He obtained a position in the drafting-room of the engineering shops of the Australasian Steam Navigation Company and later on found the experience of great use in constructing his models. In 1872 he went on a voyage to New Guinea but was wrecked, and in 1875 he again sailed as an engineer on an expedition to the Gulf of Papua. From October 1875 to January 1876 he was exploring the hinterland of Port Moresby under O. C. Stone, and in April 1876 went on another expedition under Luigi Maria D'Albertis for over 400 miles up the Fly River. He returned to Sydney, joined the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1877, and in 1878 became an assistant astronomical observer at Sydney observatory. He held this position for about five years, retired in 1883 with a moderate competency, and gave the rest of his life to research work. He was much interested in the study of aviation problems and for a time gave particular attention to the flight of birds. He learnt something from this and also from the mode of progression of the common earth-worm. He made endless experiments and numerous models, and communicated his conclusions in a series of papers to the Royal Society of New South Wales. Two papers which will be found in the 1885 volume of its Journal and Proceedings show that he was early on the road to success. Other important papers will be found in the 1893 and 1895 volumes which reported on his experiments with flying-machine motors and cellular kites. He showed that on 12 November 1894 these kites had lifted the weight of a man 16 feet into the air. He claimed that "The particular steps gained are the demonstration that an extremely simple apparatus can be made, carried about, and flown by one man; and that a safe means of making an ascent with a flying machine, of trying the same without any risk of accident, and descending, is now at the service of any experimenter who wishes to use it." (Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 29, p. 47). This paper was read in June 1895 but part of it had appeared in Engineering, London, on 15 February 1895. This was seen by A. L. Rotch of the meteorological observatory at Harvard university who constructed a kite from the particulars in Engineering. A modification was adopted by the weather bureau of the United States and the use of box-kites for meteorological observations became widespread. The principle was applied to gliders, and in October 1906 Santos Dumont in a box-kite aeroplane made the first officially recorded flight. As late as 1909 the box-kite aeroplane was the usual type in Europe.
Hargrave had not confined himself to the problem of constructing a heavier than air machine that would fly, for he had given much time to the means of propulsion. In 1889 he invented a rotary engine which appears to have attracted so little notice that its principle had to be discovered over again by the brothers Seguin in 1908. This form of engine was much used in early aviation until it was superseded by later inventions. Hargrave's work like that of many another pioneer was not sufficiently appreciated during his lifetime. His models were offered to the premier of New South Wales as a gift to the state, and it is generally stated that the offer was not accepted. That is not correct. It is not clear what really happened, but there appears to have been delay in accepting the models, and in the meantime they were given to some visiting German professors who handed them to the Munich museum. (See the Technical Gazette of New South Wales, 1924, p. 46.) Hargrave also made experiments with a hydroplane, the application of the gyroscopic principle to a "one-wheeled car", and with "wave propelled vessels". In 1915 his only son, a young engineer, was killed at Gallipoli. It was a great blow for Hargrave who had hoped that his son would carry on his work. He died a few weeks later on 6 July 1915. He married in 1878 Margaret Preston Johnson, who survived him with four daughters. A memorial to his memory is to be erected at Bald Hill near Stanwell Park, New South Wales, not far from the beach where he made his famous ascent in a kite.
Hargrave was an excellent experimenter and his models were always beautifully made. He had the optimism that is essential for an inventor, and the perseverance that will not allow itself to be damped by failures. Modest, unassuming and unselfish, he always refused to patent his inventions, and was only anxious that he might succeed in adding to the sum of human knowledge. Many men smiled at his efforts and few had faith that anything would come of them. An honourable exception was Professor Threlfall (q.v.) who, in his presidential address to the Royal Society of New South Wales in May 1895, spoke of his "strong conviction of the importance of the work which Mr Hargrave has done towards solving the problem of artificial flight". (For a discussion on the statement that Threlfall had called Hargrave the "inventor of human flight" and the debt supposed to be owed by the Wright brothers to Hargrave, see article by Cecil W. Salier in the Australian Quarterly for March 1940). The step he made in man's conquest of the air was an important one with far-reaching consequences, and he should always be remembered as a great experimenter and inventor, who "probably did as much to bring about the accomplishment of dynamic flight as any other single individual". (Roughley's The Aeronautical Work of Lawrence Hargrave, p. 5.)
C. W. Salier, Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. XV; C. W. Salier, The Australian Quarterly, March 1940, reprinted as a pamphlet; Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, various volumes, 1884 to 1909; T. C. Roughley, The Technical Gazette of N.S.W., 1923-4, reprinted as a pamphlet; The Aeronautical Work of Lawrence Hargrave, bulletin No. 19, Technological Museum, Sydney, which has a list of some of Hargrave's papers; The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 February 1885 and 9 July 1915.
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HARGRAVES, EDWARD HAMMOND (1816-1891),one of the discoverers of gold in Australia, |
third son of John Edward Hargraves, was born at Gosport, England, on 7 October 1816, and was educated at Brighton grammar school and at Lewes. He came to New South Wales in 1832, and in the following year went on a voyage to Torres Straits and the East Indian islands, where, contracting fever, 20 out of the 27 members of the crew died. The survivors were taken to Europe and in 1834 Hargraves returned to Australia, where he worked on the land for 15 years. He joined the gold rush to California in 1849 but had little success. He noticed, however, that there was a similarity between the Californian gold country and land he had seen near Bathurst, and, returning to Sydney in January 1851, proceeded to the Bathurst district, where with the assistance of a youth he had engaged as a guide, named J. H. A. Lister, he washed some earth, and found small particles of alluvial gold. He engaged another youth named James Tom; the two assistants washed four ounces of gold, and larger amounts were found soon afterwards. Hargraves applied to the government for a reward and while this was being considered he was made a commissioner of crown lands at a salary of twenty shillings a day. Hargraves asked that �500 should be given him before disclosing the site where the gold had been found, but was told he must trust the government. He did so and was given �500. This was afterwards increased to �10,000 by the New South Wales government, and he was also awarded �5000 by the Victorian government in 1855. It would appear from Hargraves's Address to the Honourable Members of the Legislature of Victoria, dated 1877, that he actually received only �2381 of this amount. There has been much controversy as to whether Hargraves was actually the first discoverer of gold in Australia. The truth appears to be that Strzelecki (q.v.) found small quantities in 1839, and W. B. Clarke (q.v.) found gold in payable quantities in 1844, but at the request of Governor Gipps (q.v.) did not disclose the fact to the public. But Hargraves, though not a scientific man, has the credit of rediscovering it, and adding enormously to the wealth of Australia. For the claims of James McBrien, see tinder Strzelecki.
Hargraves examined and reported on other fields for the government, but on receiving his reward resigned his position as commissioner of crown lands, visited England, and was presented to Queen Victoria as the discoverer of gold in Australia. In 1855 Hargraves published Australia and its Gold Fields with a map and a portrait of the author. He returned to Australia and subsequently visited Western Australia at the request of the government there, but was not successful in finding gold. In 1877 he was given a pension of �250 a year by the New South Wales government, and he died on 29 October 1891 at Sydney. He was survived by several sons and daughters. About the time of his death the claims of his assistants to have been the actual first finders of the gold in April 1851 were brought forward and a select committee found in their favour (Mennell). But Hargraves, in his book published in 1855, stated positively that he had found gold in the presence of Lister in February 1851, and his letter to the colonial secretary applying for a reward is dated 3 April 1851. The fact that the amount he found was small in comparison with the four ounces later found by Tom and Lister does not really affect the issue.
E. H. Hargraves, Australia and Its Gold Fields; The Sydney Morning Herald, 31 October 1891; P. Mennell, The Dictionary of Australasian Biography; W. B. Clarke, Researches on the Southern Gold Fields of New South Wales, pp. 289-305.
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HARPER, ANDREW (1844-1936),biblical scholar, |
was born at Glasgow, Scotland, on 13 November 1844. After some preliminary education at Glasgow Academy he came to Australia and went to Scotch College, Melbourne. He joined the civil service, but in 1864 passed the matriculation examination of the university of Melbourne and graduated B.A. in 1868. Going on to the university of Edinburgh he graduated B.D. in 1872 and gained the Cunningham fellowship. Returning to Australia he was appointed English master at the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne, became headmaster in 1877, and in 1879 principal. He resigned at the end of 1888 leaving the school with a high reputation among the secondary schools of Victoria. In the same year he was appointed professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Exegesis at Ormond College, university of Melbourne. He became editor of The Messenger of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria in 1895, and during the following five years carried it on with much ability and success. In 1901 he was appointed Hunter-Baillie professor of Hebrew and principal of St Andrew's College, university of Sydney. He resigned the office of principal in 1921 and the professorship in May 1924, being then in his eightieth year. He retired to Edinburgh where he died on 25 November 1936, a few days after his ninety-second birthday. He married (1) Miss Craig and (2) Barbara Rainy, daughter of Dr Robert Rainy, principal of New College, Edinburgh, where Harper had studied for his divinity degree. She survived him with two sons and five daughters.
Harper was a fine scholar but did not publish a great deal. The Book of Deuteronomy in the Expositer's Bible series, published in 1895, gave him a wide reputation, and it was everywhere recognized as a work of great value. He also contributed a volume, The Song of Solomon, to The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges in 1902. His The Hon. James Balfour M.L.C., a Memoir, is an interesting record of a leading Mellbourne merchant and politician whom Harper had known for nearly 50 years. A series of lectures to the Sydney University Christian Union was published under the title Christian Essentials; he printed a few pamphlets, and he also contributed the chapter on "The White Australia Policy" to Australia, Economic and Political Studies, edited by Meredith Atkinson and published in 1920.
Harper was a good speaker and debater who exercised much influence in the Presbyterian Church in Australia, and more especially on the candidates for the ministry who studied under him. He had decided convictions but could realize the difficulties of others. Personally he was modest and thoroughly sincere, loyal to the Christian faith yet believing in scientific inquiry, a wise and understanding mentor at a period of transition and reshaping, when many beliefs once firmly held were being attacked.
Dr G. W S. Reid, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 November 1936, reprinted in The Messenger, Melbourne, 11 December 1936; The Scotsman, 26 November 1936; A. Harper, The Honourable James Balfour, M.L.C., A Memoir; Annual Reports Presbyterian Ladies College, Melbourne, 1877-88; Aeneas Macdonald, One Hundred Years of Presbyterianism in Victoria; Who's Who, 1927; The Melbourne University Calendar, 1867-8, 1869-70.
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HARPUR, CHARLES (1813-1868),poet, |
was born at Windsor, New South Wales, on 23 January 1813. His father, Joseph Harpur, was the parish clerk, and master of the Windsor district school, and there the boy received his elementary education. This was probably largely supplemented by private study. He followed various avocations in the bush and for some years in his twenties held a clerical position at the post office, Sydney. In Sydney he met Parkes (q.v.), D. H. Deniehy (q.v.), Robert Lowe (q.v.) and W. A. Duncan, who in 1845 published Harpur's first little volume, Thoughts, A Series of Sonnets, which has since become very rare. Harpur had left Sydney two years before and was farming with a brother on the Hunter River. In 1850 he married Mary Doyle and engaged in sheep farming for some years with varying success. In 1853 he published The Bushrangers: a Play in Five Acts, and other Poems. The play is a failure and contains some of Harpur's worst writing, but the volume included some of his best poems. In 1858 he was given the appointment of gold commissioner at Araluen with a good salary. He held the position for eight years and also had a farm at Eurobodalla. Harpur found, however, that his duties prevented him from supervising the work on the farm and it became a bad investment. In 1866 his position was abolished at a time of retrenchment, and in March 1867 he had a great sorrow when his second son was killed by the accidental discharge of his own gun. Harpur never recovered from the blow. He contracted consumption in the hard winter of 1867, and died on 10 June 1868. He was survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters. One of his daughters, writing many years after, mentioned that he had left his family an unencumbered farm and a well-furnished comfortable home. In addition to the books mentioned, two verse pamphlets, A Poets Home and The Tower of a Dream, had appeared in 1862 and 1865, but a collected edition of Harpur's poems was not published until 1883. The unknown editor stated that he had "had to supply those final revisions which the author had been obliged to leave unmade". This work does not appear to have been well done, and several already published poems which needed no revision were not included. The manuscripts of Harpur's poems are at the Mitchell library, Sydney, and a portrait is in the council chamber at Windsor.
Harpur was the first Australian poet worthy of the name. He is little read and the tendency has been to under-rate him in comparison with other writers of the nineteenth century. He may have been slightly influenced by Wordsworth but he is not really a derivative poet, and his best work is excellent. He is represented in several Australian anthologies.
A brother, Joseph J. Harpur, a man of considerable ability, represented Patrick's Plains in the New South Wales legislative assembly for some years. He died on 2 May 1878.
Register of Births, St Matthew's Church, Windsor; preface to Harpur's Poems; J. Howlett Ross in Miles' Poets and Poetry of the Century, vol. 4; The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 May 1878, 24 August 1929.
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HARRIS, RICHARD DEODATUS POULETT (1817-1899),educationist, |
was descended from Sir Amias Poulett, ambassador to France in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and afterwards keeper of Mary Queen of Scots. Harris was born on 26 October 1817 at Cape Breton Island, where his father, Captain Charles Poulett-Harris of the 60th Rifles, was stationed. Educated at the Manchester Free Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge, he graduated B.A. with honours in 1843, and M.A. in 1852. He was ordained deacon in 1847 and priest in 1849 in the Church of England. He engaged in teaching and became a master at Huddersfield College in 1844, and five years later was appointed classics master at the Blackheath proprietary school. He went to Tasmania about the end of 1856 to became headmaster of the Hobart high school, and filled the position with much ability, inspiring both respect and affection from his pupils. It was at his suggestion that an act was passed in 1858 founding a system of school examinations based on the Oxford and Cambridge local examinations, and also founding the Tasmanian scholarships of �200 a year tenable at English universities. He was one of the original members of the council of education founded in 1859, and long advocated the establishment of the university of Tasmania. He resigned from his headmastership in 1885 and lived in retirement near Hobart. When the university was founded in 1890 Harris was elected the first warden of the senate. He died at Woodbridge, Tasmania, on 23 December 1899, and was survived by his wife, several daughters and a son.
P. Mennell, The Dictionary of Australasian Biography; The Mercury, Hobart, 25 December 1899; The Launceston Examiner, 25 December 1899; Crockford's Clerical Directory, 1899.
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HARRIS, SAMUEL HARRY (1880-1936),surgeon, |
son of Henry S. Harris, was born in 1880. He was educated at Sydney Grammar School of which he was captain in 1900. He graduated M.B., Ch.M. "with credit" at the university of Sydney in 1906, where he also obtained his blue for cricket. After a term as resident medical officer at Sydney hospital, he had a general practice at Enmore and, becoming a consultant in 1918, was associated with the South Sydney Women's hospital and was on the honorary medical staff of Lewisham hospital. He had obtained the degree of M.D. in 1914 with a thesis on the pyelitis of pregnancy. He had been much interested in gynaecology, but now began to make a special study of urology. At a meeting of the Australasian medical congress held in Dunedin, New Zealand, in March 1927 he read a paper in which he described a new method of prostatectomy. It was at first condemned in England, but gradually gained favour in Australia, and in 1935 Harris visited Europe determined to demonstrate the advantages of his method. He made many converts, though a writer in the Lancet of 13 February 1937 would not say more than that "the majority of British genito-urinary surgeons are now prepared to admit that although his technique is unlikely ever to be used as a routine, it has gained an important place in prostatic surgery". Another original piece of work was his fluoroscopic study of neuro-muscular disturbances of the kidneys. He was the author of over 40 papers, many of which appeared in the Medical Journal of Australia, the Lancet, and other oversea journals, and was a member of the editorial committee of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery and of the British Journal of Surgery. He was always glad to communicate his knowledge and demonstrate his methods to other members of his profession, and surgeons from all parts of Australia and New Zealand came to him at Lewisham hospital. He had a brilliant and original mind, and was one of the few Australian surgeons to gain an international reputation. He died at Sydney on 25 December 1936 leaving a widow and one son.
The Medical journal of Australia, 3 April 1937; The Lancet, 13 February 1937; The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 December 1936.
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HARRISON, HENRY COLDEN ANTILL (1836-1929),athlete and father of the Australian game of football, |
son of John Harrison, a sea-captain who became a grazier, was born at Picton, New South Wales on 16 October 1836. About the end of 1837 his father decided to go to the Port Phillip district, and took up land on the Plenty about 20 miles from Melbourne. Some years later a move was made to about the present site of St Arnaud. About the end of 1850 Harrison's father, being broken in health, removed to Melbourne. His son had already been sent at the beginning of the year to the Diocesan Grammar School, the forerunner of the Melbourne Grammar School. After a short experience on the gold-diggings, the boy entered the Victorian customs department at the end of 1853, and remained in it for 35 years. He was transferred to the titles office in 1888 and afterwards became registrar of titles. He retired on a pension in 1900 and died at Kew, a suburb of Melbourne, on 2 September 1929, having nearly reached the great age of 93. He married his cousin Emily Wills in 1864 and was survived by four daughters. His autobiography, The Story of an Athlete, was published in 1923.
Harrison did not discover he was a good runner until he was 22 years of age, but soon afterwards he became the finest amateur runner of his period, and his matches against L. L. Mount of Ballarat caused much public interest. He does not appear to have been a first-rate sprinter, his time in the hundred was usually about four yards over evens. His 440 yards, on a grass track of the period, in 50� seconds was, however, a fine performance. He had already been known for some time as a cricketer and footballer, with his cousin Tom Wills he had arranged a game of football in 1856. Some 10 years later he drafted a set of rules which were adopted at a meeting of delegates from the existing Melbourne football clubs held on 8 May 1866. These rules have since been modified and extended, but the essential difference between the Australian and the present Rugby and Association games was provided for from the beginning. Rule 8 read: "The ball may be taken in hand at any time, but not carried further than is necessary for a kick, and no player shall run with the ball unless he strikes it against the ground every five or six yards." Harrison was successively captain of the Richmond, Melbourne and Geelong clubs, and then of Melbourne again. He retired from football in 1872 at the age of 36. He once told the present writer that he considered that the reason of his being able to stay so long was that he did not begin his athletic career until he was over 20. He was elected a member of the committee of the Melbourne Cricket Club in 1871, and was a vice-president from 1892 until his death. When the Victorian Football Association was formed in 1877 he was elected vice-president, and in 1905 he was chairman of the first Australian Football Council. He was a handsome, well-built man of slightly under six feet, everywhere held in the highest esteem. He was always recognized as the "father of the Australian game of football" which has become the most popular game of its kind in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania, but is only played to a limited extent in New South Wales and Queensland.
H. C. A. Harrison, The Story of an Athlete; The Argus, Melbourne, 3 September 1929; personal knowledge.
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HARRISON, JAMES (1816-1893),journalist, and pioneer of meat preserving, |
was born near Glasgow, Scotland, in 1816. He came to Australia in 1837 in charge of materials sent out by Tegg, a Cheapside bookseller, to his son at Sydney. This was used to produce the Literary News to which Harrison became a contributor. He went to Melbourne and worked for Fawkner (q.v.) on the Port Phillip Patriot, and started the Geelong Advertiser in 1840. He managed and edited this paper until the early sixties when he sold it. He had already developed an interest in refrigeration and in 1850 acquired land on the Barwon and erected an ice factory. In 1851 Glasgow and Company, brewers of Bendigo, installed a refrigerator of the Harrison type, which was the world's pioneer of such machines. In March 1856 Harrison secured a patent in England for the "production of cold by evaporation of volatile liquids in vacuo" and in September 1857 patented an apparatus for the same purpose. He was in England in this year, in touch with distinguished scientists like Faraday and Tyndall, and arranging for the manufacture of refrigerating machines. Returning to Victoria he was elected to the legislative assembly for Geelong in 1859 and sat in two parliaments. He started another paper, the Geelong Register, but sold it a year or two later, and subsequently was on the staff of the Australasian and editor of the Age at Melbourne. In 1873 he exhibited his refrigerating machine at Melbourne, and proved that mutton, beef, poultry and fish, could be preserved for long periods. In July of that year he sent a large shipment of frozen meat to England, but technical defects in the freezing chamber led to the meat going bad, and Harrison, who must have put much money into his inventions, was practically ruined. He went to England and lived there for about 19 years, spending his time in scientific study and journalism; he never entirely severed his connexion with the Age. He returned to Geelong early in 1893 bringing his family with him and hoping that one of his sons, who was suffering from consumption, might benefit from the change of climate. The young man, however, died and was followed by his father shortly afterwards on 3 September 1893. Harrison was married three times and left a widow and children.
Like other inventors who have done good work Harrison died a poor man. A stone was placed over his grave in the Geelong cemetery with the quotation "one soweth--another reapeth" engraved on it. He was an able journalist and his inventions had great value. The authors of A History of the Frozen Meat Trade are satisfied that except for one invention, which apparently was never practically tried out, Harrison was years ahead of all his rivals.
J. T. Critchell and J. Raymond, A History of the Frozen Meat Trade; The Age and The Argus, Melbourne, 4 September 1893; The Geelong Advertiser, 4 September 1893.
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HART, JOHN (1809-1873),premier of South Australia, |
was born in 1809. He went to sea, voyaged to Australia, and in 1833 was in command of the schooner Elizabeth trading from Tasmania; late in that year he took Edward Henty (q.v.) to and from Portland Bay. In 1836 he was sent to London to purchase another vessel, and returning in the Isabella took the first live stock from Tasmania to South Australia in 1837. On the return voyage the Isabella was wrecked and Hart lost everything he had. He went to Adelaide and J. B. Hack sent him to Sydney to buy a vessel in which he brought stock to Portland Bay. Some of this stock he successfully brought overland to South Australia. He was harbour-master at Encounter Bay in 1839, and in 1843 sailed to England in command of the Augustus of which he was two-thirds owner. After one more voyage to England he gave up the sea in 1846, and settled near Adelaide, where he established large and successful flour mills. He became interested in copper mining, and some imputations having been made of underhand dealings in connexion with leases, challenged inquiry. A select committee completely exonerated Hart stating that his conduct in every particular had been that of a strictly honourable and upright man.
Hart took an interest in public affairs, in 1851 was elected to the legislative council, and in 1857 became a member for Port Adelaide in the first house of assembly. He was treasurer in the Baker ministry which lasted only a few days in August 1857, and held the same position in the Hanson (q.v.) cabinet from 30 September 1857 to 12 June 1858 when he resigned. He was chief secretary in the short-lived first Dutton (q.v.) ministry in July 1863, and was treasurer in the first and second Ayers (q.v.) ministries, and the first Blyth (q.v.) ministry from July 1863 to March 1865. He became premier and chief secretary from 23 October 1865 to 28 March 1866 and from 24 September 1868 to 13 October 1868. He was premier and treasurer from 30 May 1870 to 10 November 1871, his last term of office, and he died suddenly on 28 January 1873 leaving a widow and a large family. He was created C.M.G. in 1870.
Hart was a self-made man, shrewd and farseeing, who became wealthy. In politics he showed the same business qualities that had made him successful. He was not a fluent speaker though he could make a vigorous speech on matters about which he felt strongly. He was interested in the Northern Territory and was in office when the first act for its settlement was passed, and he planned Goyder's successful expedition of 1868-9 for the survey of the territory. He was a supporter of educational reforms and was a sound and cautious treasurer.
The South Australian Register and The South Australian Advertiser, 29 January 1873; R. D. Boys, First Years at Port Phillip; P. Mennell, The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.
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HARTLEY, JOHN ANDERSON (1844-1896),educationist, |
son of the Rev. John Hartley, governor of the Wesleyan College, Handsworth, Birmingham, was born in Yorkshire, England, on 27 August 1844. Educated at the Woodhouse Grove school near Leeds, and University College, London, where he graduated B.A. in 1868 and B.Sc. in 1870, he taught for a time at his old school Woodhouse Grove, and at the Methodist College at Belfast. In 1871 he became head master of Prince Alfred College, Adelaide, then a comparatively new school with about 100 pupils. In three years the number was raised to 150 and Hartley was getting on so well with the staff and the boys that it appeared as though the college had found its ideal principal. However, in 1875 Hartley resigned to become president of the newly-appointed council of education. Some four years later the council was abolished, and Hartley was appointed inspector-general of schools and permanent head of the South Australian education department.
Hartley immediately began remodelling the whole system. He met with opposition from a section of the press and from teachers who objected to his methods, and Hartley was more pleased than otherwise when in August 1881 a select committee was appointed to go into the questions at issue. In November of that year the inquiry was taken over by a royal commission. Much evidence was taken and the whole question of primary education was exhaustively examined. The report of the commission completely exonerated Hartley and spoke in the highest terms of his methods. Henceforth he was completely trusted by successive ministers, the public, and his teaching staff. It was said of him in later years that his few opponents were people who had never met him and had little real knowledge of his methods. His first problem had been to build up a sound system of primary education, but as the years went by his efforts were given to relating this in the best possible way to secondary education and the university. He devised the system of junior, senior, and advanced public examinations, and, as a member of the council of the university of Adelaide from its beginning in 1874, he gave much time to committee work and the framing of the curriculum for degrees. He was appointed vice-chancellor in 1893 and held the position until his death. He found time to take an interest in the public service association of which he was president several times, he was the prime mover in organizing the public teachers' provident fund, and he was also associated with the public service provident fund. In connexion with his own department he edited the Education Gazette and was responsible for a paper for juveniles, The Children's Hour. He died on 15 September 1896 as the result of an accident while riding a bicycle. Before leaving for Australia he married a Miss Green who survived him. There were no children.
The death of Hartley at the comparatively early age of 52 was felt in South Australia to be a public calamity. His great capacity for work, his insistence on discipline tempered by kindness, his consideration for others, his scholarly attainments, and his administrative capacity, made him a great director of education. The education system of South Australia, entirely remodelled in his time, was his monument. It was said that he had brought its administration to such perfection that the post of minister of education became almost a sinecure. In private life Hartley was fond of gardening, poetry and art. The Hartley studentship at the university of Adelaide was founded in his memory.
The South Australian Register and The Adelaide Advertiser, 16 September 1896; P. Mennell The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.
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HASWELL, WILLIAM AITCHESON (1854-1925),biologist, |
was born at Gayfield House, Edinburgh, on 5 August 1854. He was educated at the Edinburgh Institution and the Edinburgh university, where he won seven medals, and at the conclusion of his course gained the Bell-Baxter scholarship as the most distinguished natural science student of his year. He qualified for the M.A. and B.Sc. degrees in 1878, and immediately afterwards, for reasons of health, went on a voyage to Australia. He had the advantage of studying zoology under Wyville Thomson, and Huxley, and geology under Archibald Geikie. He had also studied medicine and surgery but abandoned them for natural science. He arrived in Sydney before the end of 1878 and was elected a member of the Linnean Society of New South Wales in April 1879, when he had already contributed five papers to the Proceedings. He was appointed curator of the Queensland museum at Brisbane in December 1879, but towards the end of 1880 gave up this position and went to Sydney, where in 1881 Sir William Macleay (q.v.) arranged for him to give a course of public lectures on zoology. He was acting-curator of the Australian museum for part of 1882, and compiled a Catalogue of the Australian Stalk- and Sessile-eyed Crustacea which was published in that year. In the same year he was appointed demonstrator, and later, lecturer, in the subjects of zoology, comparative anatomy, and histology at the university of Sydney. He was much interested in the fauna of the New South Wales coast, and especially in the Crustacea Annelida and Bryozoa, but also did other work covering a wide field. When the Challis professorship of biology was founded in 1889, Haswell was given the position and held it until its division in 1913. In 1893 he published in the Macleay Memorial Volume "A Monograph of the Temnocephaleae", a group which retained his interest for the remainder of his life. In January 1898 appeared A Text-book of Zoology written in conjunction with T. Jeffery Parker of the university of Otago, New Zealand, which, in spite of its nearly 1500 pages, was described by the authors as being "strictly adapted to the needs of the beginner". On account of Parker's death the second edition of this standard text-book, which appeared in 1910, was prepared by Haswell, as was also the edition which came out in January 1922. He also published a Manual of Zoology in 1899 which was reprinted in 1908. In 1913 a chair of botany was created at the university of Sydney and Haswell became professor of zoology. He resigned his office at the end of 1917 and was appointed professor emeritus. He continued doing research work until shortly before his death at Sydney on 24 January 1925. He married in 1894 Josephine Gordon, daughter of W. G. Rich, who survived him with a daughter. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, London, in 1897. In 1915 the Royal Society of New South Wales awarded him the Clarke medal. In addition to the works already mentioned Haswell contributed a large number of papers to scientific journals. No fewer than 74 of these were published in the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. He was a member of the council of this society from 1881 until his death, and was its president for the years 1891-2 and 1892-3. He was also a trustee of the Australian museum for 33 years.
Haswell was shy and unassuming, but a loyal and warm-hearted friend, with a quiet sense of humour and much appreciation of a good story. On vacation he was fond of fly-fishing and golf, but generally he was an unceasing worker, collecting himself the materials for his researches, and making his own drawings. The Text-Book of Zoology in which he had so large a share was an excellent piece of work, clearly written and concise, a remarkable piece of scholarship which in its own way could hardly have been excelled. Many generations of students in Great Britain, America and Australia, laid the foundations of their knowledge of zoology on this book. He was himself a good and sound teacher, and at the time of his death, in four out of the six universities of Australia, the chair of zoology or biology was held by one of his former students.
Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, 1925, p. V; Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 1925, p. 5; Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B. vol. XCVII, p. XII; Calendars of the University of Sydney, 1914-18; The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 January 1925.
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HAWDON, JOSEPH (1813-1871),pioneer,[ also refer to Joseph HAWDON page at Project Gutenberg Australia] |
son of John Hawdon, was born at Walkerfield, Durham, England, in 1813. He arrived in Sydney in November 1834, and in 1836 with J. Gardiner made an overland journey to Melbourne with cattle, the first to come from New South Wales. He returned to Sydney but came to Melbourne again in 1837, and in August took up land near the present site of Dandenong. About the end of that year the newly-established South Australian settlement was threatened with famine, and Hawdon, who had returned to New South Wales, with Charles Bonney, drove 300 head of cattle from the Goulburn district to Adelaide, where they arrived on 3 April 1838. Sturt (q.v.) in an official report made in August 1838 said of this journey: "Messrs Hawdon and Bonney could not have taken a more direct line or shortened the journey more wisely". Hawdon also became the official mail contractor between Melbourne and Yass at the beginning of 1838. He made his headquarters at or near Melbourne for many years, and was one of the directors of the Pastoral and Agricultural Society when it was formed in 1840, and a member of the committee of the Victorian Horticultural Society which was inaugurated in November 1848. He had a property at Heidelberg and in August 1851 discovered a few grains of gold near the Yarra River. Going afterwards to New Zealand Hawdon took up land between Christchurch and Westland, and afterwards spent some years in England. He returned to New Zealand, was nominated to the New Zealand legislative council in 1866, and died at Christchurch on 12 April 1871. He married in 1842 Emma, daughter of W. Outhwaite. An elder brother, John Hawdon, born on 29 June 1801, came to Sydney in 1828 and held land in various parts of New South Wales. He was associated with his brother in overlanding and in connexion with mail contracts. He died on 28 October 1886.
Kenyon papers at P. L. [Public Library?] Melbourne; The Cyclopedia of New Zealand, vol. 3; J. Blacket, The Early History of South Australia, which quotes Hawdon's journal, this journal was also reprinted in the Murray Pioneer early in 1938; Mrs N. G. Sturt, Life of Charles Sturt; E. Finn, The Chronicles of Early Melbourne, pp. 57, 427, 429, 800; J. H. Heaton, Australian Dictionary of Dates; G. H. Scholefield, A Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.
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HAWKER, GEORGE CHARLES (1818-1895),pioneer and politician, |
was the second son of Admiral Edward Hawker, and was born at London on 21 September 1818. He was educated partly on the continent, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1836. He qualified for his B.A. degree in 1840, and towards the end of that year went to South Australia. He had some capital to start with, and after trying two sites which were found to have insufficient water, established a sheep station some distance to the north of Adelaide, afterwards known as Bungaree. He had two brothers with him at first and all three soon adapted themselves to pioneer conditions; some of the early station buildings in fact were put up with their own hands. In 1841 they were members of a party of 10 that went out to reclaim a large number of sheep that had fallen into the hands of the aborigines. The aborigines heavily outnumbered them and they were fortunate in escaping with the loss of one horse with one member of their party wounded. Hawker eventually bought out his brothers and extended his land until he had some 80,000 acres. Much attention was paid to the breeding of his sheep, and his wool gained a high reputation.
In January 1858 Hawker entered the South Australian house of assembly as member for the district of Victoria, and in April 1860, though a comparatively young man and opposed by B. T. Finniss (q.v.) and F. S. Dutton (q.v.), was elected speaker. He was successful in this position carrying out its duties with tact and dignity, and showing a good knowledge of parliamentary practice. He retired from parliament in 1865, went to England with his family, and did not return until 1874. He again entered parliament and, except for a few months, was a member until his death. He was twice asked to form a ministry and declined on each occasion, but several times held office. He was treasurer in the third Blyth (q.v.) ministry for a few days in 1875, and chief secretary in the second Boucaut (q.v.) ministry from March to June 1876. He was commissioner of public works in the third Boucaut ministry from October 1877 to September 1878, and held the same position in the Morgan (q.v.) ministry until June 1881. In 1889 he visited India to inquire into the irrigation question, and on his return wrote a series of articles on this subject which appeared in the South Australian Register. He died on 21 May 1895; if he had lived a few days longer he would have been created K.C.M.G. He married in December 1845 Bessie, daughter of Henry Seymour, who survived him with six sons and six daughters.
Hawker held a leading position as a citizen of South Australia. Wealthy, and a good employer, he was much interested in the every day life of the colony, a follower of cricket, racing, and coursing, a supporter of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society, and the Zoological Society. He was much respected in parliament through his long career of 26 years. In his earlier days a first rate speaker who sometimes rose to eloquence, Hawker as an old man contented himself with short speeches, which were, however, much to the point. He showed distinct administrative ability during his term as commissioner of public works.
Of Hawker's sons, Edward William Hawker, born in 1850, was for several years during his father's lifetime a member of the South Australian house of assembly. A man of wide education he took much interest in educational and public institutions. A grandson, Charles Allan Seymour Hawker, born in 1894, was a South Australian member of the Commonwealth house of representatives from 1929 to 1938, was minister for markets and repatriation from January to April 1932 and minister for commerce until September 1932. He died on 24 October 1938.
The South Australian Register and The Advertiser, Adelaide, 22 May 1895; Admissions to Trinity College, Cambridge, 1801-50; Commonwealth Parliamentary Handbook, 1938; Who's Who in Australia, 1941, Obituary.
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HAWKER, HARRY GEORGE (1889-1921),aviator, |
was born at Moorabbin, Melbourne, Victoria, on 22 January 1889. His father, George Hawker, was a blacksmith who was also a fine rifle shot. Harry Hawker was educated at Melbourne suburban state schools, and at a very early age began to work in the business of Hall and Warden, motor and bicycle agents. He afterwards joined the Tarrant Motor Company, became a good mechanic, and then, tempted by the fact that he was to have a workshop of his own, entered the employment of Mr de Little at Caramut. In 1911, having saved a little money, he went to England with the ambition of learning to fly. With much difficulty he obtained work in motor companies at a low rate of pay, but he gained great experience with the different types of motors, and at the end of June 1912 obtained an engagement with the Sopwith Company at �2 a week. He soon learned to fly, obtained his aviator's certificate, and then became an instructor. A few months later, on 24 October, he made a British record that stood for several years, by making a flight lasting eight hours twenty-three minutes. On 31 May 1913 he broke the British height record by reaching 11,450 feet, and six weeks later won the Mortimer Singer �500 prize, the conditions being that he was to make six out and home five mile flights to one mile out at sea, landing alternately on water and land. On 25 August 1913 Hawker started on a flight round Great Britain with a call at Ireland. On the third day after passing round Scotland engine trouble led to his descending a few miles short of Dublin. When the machine side-slipped into the water his companion, Kauper, had his arm broken, but Hawker escaped unhurt. They had travelled 1043 miles in under 56 hours, the actual flying time being 21 hours 44 minutes, a world's record for a seaplane in those days. Towards the end of the year Hawker designed the Sopwith Tabloid biplane, a small machine capable of performing all kinds of evolutions, and with the high speed for the period of 90 miles an hour. He took this machine to Australia and made successful exhibition flights early in 1914 at Melbourne and Sydney. Returning, to England he arrived there in June.
When the 1914-18 war began Hawker enlisted in the Royal Naval Air Service, but was retained by the authorities and employed testing various types of machines. Altogether he tested 295 machines and made many suggestions for their improvement. In March 1919 he went to Newfoundland to attempt a flight across the Atlantic, but bad weather prevented a start being made until 18 May. Hawker was accompanied by Lieut.-commander C. Mackenzie Grieve and soon after the start strong northerly gales began to blow them off their course; there was no visibility, and it was some time before they discovered that they were 150 miles south of their intended course. Radiator troubles developed and the aviators were obliged to come down below the clouds and look for a ship. They fortunately found the Mary, a Danish tramp, and making a successful landing on the sea, a boat was sent to them and they were rescued. There was no wireless on the Mary and six days passed before she was able to communicate with land. In the meantime the fliers had been given up for lost and the news of their rescue was received with much enthusiasm. Both men were personally congratulated by King George V and given the Air Force Cross, and the Daily Mail gave them a cheque for �5000.
In 1920 Hawker took up motor-racing with success, but in July was again in the air. He was not, however, in good health and was receiving treatment for his back. In November the H. G. Hawker Engineering Company was formed and Hawker showed ability as a designing engineer, especially in connexion with his streamlined racing car, the "first 100 miles an hour light car". He had agreed to pilot a Nieuport Goshawk biplane in the aerial Derby to be held on 16 July 1921, but on 12 July his machine took fire while on a practice flight and he was killed. He married in September 1917 Muriel Peaty who survived him with two daughters.
Hawker was a sturdily built man of medium height, a teetotaller and non-smoker, always cheerful and completely modest. He was a remarkably fine mechanic and a great pilot, possibly the greatest of his period. He had several serious accidents over and over again escaping with comparatively little injury. But these accidents were not the result of any carelessness or incompetence. It was still early days in the history of aviation when Hawker first appeared, and his business was to test the capabilities of the machines of the period. He was fearless as a pilot, constantly inventing new feats, and his experience and mechanical knowledge had an important influence on the early development of flying.
Muriel Hawker, H. G. Hawker, Airman; Hawker and Grieve, Our Atlantic Attempt; The Times 13 and 14 July 1921; The Argus, Melbourne, 14 July 1921.
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HAY, SIR JOHN (1816-1892),politician, |
son of John Hay, was born at Little Ythsie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, on 23 June 1816. He graduated with honours at the university of Aberdeen in 1834, and then studied law at Edinburgh. Coming to Sydney in 1838 he took up land in the Murrumbidgee district and became a successful squatter. Early in 1856 he was elected member for Murrumbidgee in the legislative assembly, and in the following September moved a vote of no-confidence in the Cowper (q.v.) ministry, which was carried. Hay recommended to governor Denison (q.v.) that H. W. Parker should be asked to form a coalition ministry in which Hay was secretary for lands and works. This ministry was defeated in September 1857 and Hay did not again hold office. In June 1860 he moved that negotiations should be opened up with Victoria for the purpose of establishing a uniformity of customs duties. This would have been a valuable step towards a federation system, but his motion was defeated. On 14 October 1862 Hay was unanimously elected speaker of the legislative assembly, but three years later, finding his health had been affected, he resigned this position. In June 1867 he was nominated a member of the legislative council and in July 1873 was appointed its president. He held this position until his death on 20 January 1892. He married in 1838 Mary, daughter of James Chalmers, who survived him for only a few days. He had no children. He was created K.C.M.G. in 1878.
Hay was not a party man but he had knowledge and wisdom, and though he originated little he was a good speaker and debater who had no little influence on the legislation of his time. He had a strong sense of justice, much kindliness and courtesy, and carried out his duties as speaker of the assembly and president of the council with great ability.
J. H. Heaton, The Australian Dictionary of Dates; The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 January 1892; Burke's Colonial Gentry, 1891; Official History of New South Wales; Sir Henry Parkes, Fifty Years of Australian History.
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HAYES, SIR HENRY BROWNE (c. 1761-1832),adventurer, |
was born in Ireland in 1761 or early in 1762. He was admitted a freeman of the city of Cork in November 1782, was one of the sheriffs in 1790, and in that year was knighted. In July 1797 he became acquainted with Miss Mary Pike, heiress to over �20,000, and on 22 July abducted her and took her to his house. In spite of Miss Pike's protestations a man dressed as a priest was brought in who went through a form of a marriage ceremony. Miss Pike refused to consider it a marriage, and was eventually rescued by her friends. Hayes fled, and a reward of �1000 was offered for his apprehension. He was not found until some two years later, when he walked into the shop of an old follower of the family and suggested that he might as well get the reward. The trial which did not begin until April 1801 created much interest. Hayes was found guilty and recommended to mercy. At first condemned to death his sentence was commuted to transportation for life, and, sailing on the Atlas, Hayes arrived at Sydney on 6 July 1802. He was never short of money and had lightened the privations of the voyage by paying the captain a considerable sum so that he might mess with him. Unfortunately for himself he quarrelled with Surgeon Jamison who was on the same vessel, and when Hayes arrived he was sentenced to six months imprisonment "for his threatening and improper conduct". He made himself a nuisance to Governor King (q.v.) by consorting with the wilder spirits among the Irish convicts, and by trying to form a freemason's lodge after permission to hold a meeting for this purpose had been refused. King called him "a restless, troublesome character". In 1803 he purchased a property near the city and called it Vaucluse. This afterwards belonged to Wentworth (q.v.). There is some warrant for the story that Hayes surrounded his property with turf from Ireland to keep out the snakes. When the troubles between the military and Bligh (q.v.) began, Hayes took the side of the governor and was sent to the coal mines at Newcastle. Bligh would have pardoned him if he could have obtained possession of the great seal, and after Macquarie came Hayes was pardoned in 1812. He then sailed to Europe in the same vessel with Joseph Holt (q.v.); an interesting account of their shipwreck will be found in the Memoirs of Joseph Holt. Hayes lived in retirement in Ire land for nearly 20 years, and died about the end of April or the beginning of May 1832 aged 70 years. He was buried in the crypt of Christ Church, Cork.
C. H. Bertie, Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. III, pp. 507, 530; Philip H. Morton, ibid, vol. XV, pp. 334-63; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. III to VII; T. Crofton Croker, Memoirs of Joseph Holt, vol. II; The Gentleman's Magazine, May 1832, p. 478.
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HAYTER, HENRY HEYLYN (1821-1895),statistician, |
son of Henry Hayter, was born at Edenvale, Wiltshire, England, in October 1821. He was educated at the Charterhouse and at Paris, and came to Victoria in December 1852. He joined the Victorian registrar-general's department in 1857 and gave particular attention to the statistics of the colony. He was appointed secretary to a royal commission to inquire into the working of the public service of Victoria in 1870, and in May 1874 he was appointed government statist in charge of a separate department. In 1875 a conference of Australian statisticians met at Hobart, and considered the establishment of uniform methods of dealing with official statistics. In most cases it was decided to adopt those used by Hayter. In 1879 he went to England as secretary to the Berry (q.v.) and Pearson (q.v.) mission to London, and twice gave evidence to a committee of the house of commons which was considering the re-organizing of the system of collecting British statistics. In 1888 Hayter was president of the section dealing with economic and social science and statistics at the first meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, and in his presidential address pointed out the necessity for more complete uniformity of methods in the different colonies. He had conducted the census in Victoria in 1871 and 1881, and had found that a departure by any one colony from the established practice of the others made it quite impossible to deal with some statistics for the whole of Australia. He had intended retiring in 1890 but at the request of the government conducted the 1891 census. He died at Melbourne on 23 March 1895. He married in 1855 Susan, daughter of William Dodd, who survived him with one son. He was created C.M.G. in 1882.
Hayter was the author of Notes of a Tour in New Zealand (1874), Notes on the Colony of Victoria (1875), A Handbook to the Colony of Victoria (1884), and various statistical pamphlets. He also published in verse Carboona, A Chapter from the Early History of Victoria (1885), and My Christmas Adventure, Carboona, and other Poems (1887), but these have no value as poetry. His work as government statistician of Victoria was of the highest value. In 1874 he published The Victorian Year-Book for 1873, the first of a series of 20 annual volumes. In these books Hayter treated statistics so that they could be understood and read with interest by the ordinary man. His methods had much effect throughout Australia and drew commendations from many parts of the world.
Men of the Time in Australia, 1878; D. Blair, Cyclopedia of Australasia; The Argus, Melbourne, 25 March 1895; P. Mennell, The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.
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HEAD, FREDERICK WALDEGRAVE (1874-1941),anglican archbishop of Melbourne, |
son of the Rev. Canon George Frederick Head, was born in London on 18 April 1874. Educated at Repton School and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he graduated B.A. with first class honours in history in 1896, M.A. in 1900, and B.D. in 1929. He was ordained deacon in 1902 and priest in 1903, was dean and tutor of Emmanuel College 1903-7, and senior tutor and chaplain of Emmanuel College from 1907 to 1921. During the 1914-18 war he was senior chaplain to the guards division and was awarded the military cross with bar. He was vicar of Christ Church, East Greenwich from 1922 to 1926, chaplain to King George V from 1922 to 1929, and canon and sub-dean of Liverpool cathedral from 1926 to 1929. In September 1929 he accepted the archbishopric of Melbourne, was consecrated in Westminster Abbey on 1 November, and enthroned in St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne on 23 December.
In Melbourne, Head soon made himself acquainted with the various parishes and clergy. He found a diocese that already had many commitments in connexion with church schools and social work, and the financial depression which began just about the time of his arrival made a strong forward policy inopportune. He interested himself in the question of the re-union of the Christian churches, and in the holding together of his own diocese by preaching peace and goodwill to all, and setting a personal example of plain living and high thinking. At one period he voluntarily gave up a quarter of his stipend, and refused to countenance any expenditure which might lighten his own burden of work. If it was possible to help a parish by attending some function or service he made it his duty to be there, and his relations with his clergy were of the friendliest. From 1933 he was chaplain general to the Commonwealth military forces. Tactful, unassuming, and completely modest, scholarly and hard-working, much interested in social questions, Head was a steady influence for good in Melbourne. On 7 December 1941 while travelling to a confirmation service his car, which he was driving himself, ran into a post, and he died from his injuries on 18 December. He married in 1904 Edith Mary Colman, who survived him with one son. He was the author of The Fallen Stuarts, published in 1901, and Six Great Anglicans, which appeared in 1929.
The Argus and The Age, Melbourne, 19 December 1941; The Herald, Melbourne, 19 December 1941; The Church of England Messenger, 22 December 1941; Edith M. Head, F. W. Head, A Sketch for Those Who Loved Him.
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HEALES, RICHARD (c. 1822-1864),premier of Victoria, |
son of an ironmonger, was born at London and came to Melbourne with his father in 1842. The year of his birth is sometimes given as 1823, but as his death notice stated that he was 42 years of age in June 1864, he probably was born in either the second half of 1821 or the first half of 1822. Heales had learned the trade of coachbuilder, but in his early days in Victoria he suffered privations, and was obliged at times to work as a day labourer at six shillings a day. He was a teetotaller and first came into notice as a lecturer on total abstinence; it was largely through his exertions that the Temperance Hall in Russell-street, Melbourne, was built. By 1850 Heales's financial position had much improved, he had opened a business for himself, and being of a saving disposition had now a private income. He was elected to the Melbourne city council in 1850, in 1852 took a trip to England to see his friends, and was away for about two years. He Was back in Melbourne early in 1855, and at the first general election under the new constitution, held in September 1856, was defeated for a Melbourne seat in the legislative assembly. He was, however, returned for East Bourke early in 1857. In 1859 he was elected for East Bourke boroughs, and held this seat for the rest of his life. In October 1860 Heales was a vigorous critic of the land bill brought in by the Nicholson (q.v.) ministry, and on the defeat of this ministry became premier on 26 November 1860. Heales advocated a land policy allowing free selection before survey with payments extended over a long term, but in June 1861 he was defeated on a no-confidence motion. An appeal to the country brought the government back with an increased majority, but there was a defection of some of his leading supporters, and he resigned in November 1861. In opposition he showed considerable parliamentary ability' and in spite of the government succeeded in passing the common schools act. When the third O'Shanassy (q.v.) ministry was defeated in June 1863, Heales became president of the board of land and works and commissioner of crown lands and survey in the first McCulloch (q.v.) ministry. He brought in two land bills, both of which were rejected by the legislative council, and it is probable that hard work and anxiety were partly responsible for his falling into ill health. He died on 19 June 1864. He married when very young, and left a widow and eight children.
Heales had been a working man himself, and when premier, showed solicitude for the mining population and the position of the labouring classes generally. His earnestness and sincerity brought him many friends and admirers, and his early death robbed the state of an honest and able man whose short political career was of unusual promise.
The Argus and The Age, Melbourne, 20 June 1864; H. G. Turner, A History of the Colony of Victoria.
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HEARN, WILLIAM EDWARD (1826-1888),jurist and economist, |
son of the Rev. W. E. Hearn, was born at Belturbet, Cavan, Ireland, on 21 April 1826. He was educated at the Royal School of Enniskillen and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated as first senior moderator in classics. He studied law, was admitted to the Irish bar, and subsequently obtained the degree of LL.D. of Trinity College. In 1849 he became professor of Greek at Queen's College, Galway, and in 1854 was appointed professor of modern history, modern literature, logic and political economy, in the newly established university of Melbourne. He had already published, in 1851, The Cassell Prize Essay on the Condition of Ireland. It was one of the conditions of the competition that the social conditions of Ireland must be discussed, and as Hearn was only 25 when he won the prize of 200 guineas, his studies for it may have had no little influence in forming the bent of his mind. He arrived in Melbourne early in 1855. The title of his professorship suggests an impossible task, but for many years the students were few in number, and before the numbers increased to any extent the title had been altered to professor of history and political economy. In 1859 he was a candidate for a seat in the Victorian legislative assembly and was defeated. There was nothing in the conditions of his appointment to prevent him from standing, and there were several precedents in Great Britain. But the council of the university became alarmed, probably because it was principally dependent for its existence on its government grant, and feared that Hearn's political activities might prejudice the interests of the university. A statute was then passed providing that professors could not sit in parliament or become members of a political association. Hearn accepted the position in the meantime, and in 1863 published an important work, Plutology: or the Theory of the Efforts to Satisfy Human Wants, which was reprinted in 1878 and 1889. His next volume The Government of England, its Structure and its Development was published in 1867. Of this book Hearn said, "It is no part of my present design to inquire whether on grounds of political convenience or otherwise any alteration in our constitutional system should be adopted . . . I seek only to ascertain what the constitution of England now is, and how it became what it is."
In 1873 it was decided to establish a law school at the university and Hearn was appointed dean of the faculty of law. The wording of the statute provided that the dean if not a professor should be a member of the professorial board, and should hold the office by the same tenure and receive the same emoluments as a professor. Hearn then resigned his professorship of history, and was henceforth known as Dr Hearn. At the general election held in 1874 he again stood for parliament and was again defeated. However, in 1878 he was elected a member of the legislative council for the Central Province by a large majority and held this seat until his death. In the same year he published The Aryan Household, its Structure and its Development. An Introduction to Comparative Jurisprudence, in which his wide knowledge and reading had full scope. He was busy in many directions, writing frequently for the Melbourne Argus and Australasian, and interesting himself in the government of the Church of England in which he was chancellor of the diocese. He took a full share in the administration of the university, he was warden of the senate from 1868 to 1875, and a member of the council from 1881 to 1886, in May of which year he was elected chancellor. He had been an able fighter both on committees and on the council, and when his tenure as a councillor expired in November his opponents organized and succeeded in defeating him at the election by a few votes, and he automatically ceased to be chancellor. In the legislative council Hearn was elected unofficial leader of the house and did much work in examining the various bills brought forward, and also in preparing a draft code of the Victorian statutes, which was brought before parliament in 1885 and referred to a joint committee of both houses. It was submitted to various legal authorities who gave varying views on it, but the result was that codification was abandoned for consolidation of the statutes. Hearn's last book The Theory of Legal Duties and Rights an Introduction to Analytical Jurisprudence was published in 1885, and he was made a Q.C. in 1886, but he practised little. His health began to fail in 1887 and he died at Melbourne on 23 April 1888. He was twice married (1) to Rose, daughter of the Rev. W. J. H. Lefanu and (2) to Isabel, daughter of Major W. G. St Clair who survived him. He also left a son and three daughters. In addition to the books mentioned he published a few pamphlets.
Hearn was a genial, friendly man much liked by his students. When lecturing he would bring in comic illustrations and humorous anecdotes which helped to lighten difficult subjects; but the atmosphere was one of hard work, and the lecturer was so evidently devoted to intellectual truth, and so brimful of knowledge, that he could not fail to have a great influence on his students. There was a classical clearness of style in his writings which helped to carry on the tradition; one of the greatest jurists in Australia, who was a student at Melbourne long afterwards, has testified that "the influence of his teachings in Australia has been immense" (Sir Owen Dixon quoted by Copland). If Hearn had been a professor in England rather than in Australia, he would no doubt have had a wider reputation, but to have influenced economists like Marshall and Jevons, and to have been praised by historians such as Sir John Marriott and Professor Dicey is a sufficient reward, and no one can say how much his influence has been further extended by the work of men like these who have so freely acknowledged their debt to him.
The Argus, Melbourne, 24 April 1888; The Age, Melbourne, 24 April 1888; D. B. Copland, W. E. Hearn: First Australian Economist; Sir Ernest Scott, A History of the University of Melbourne; Palgrave's Dictionary of Political Economy, vol. II; Journal of Comparative Legislation, 1934, pp. 184-5.
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HEATON, SIR JOHN HENNIKER (1848-1914),postal reformer, |
only son of Lieut.colonel John Heaton and his wife, originally Elizabeth Anne Henniker, was born at Rochester, Kent, England, on 18 May 1848. He was educated at Kent House School, Rochester, and King's College, London, and at 16 years of age went to Australia. He found employment at first as a station hand and then joined the staff of the Mercury, Parramatta. He had further experience as editor of the Penny Post, Goulburn, and the Times, Parramatta, before joining the Australian Town and Country Journal at Sydney about the year 1871. On this paper he came under the influence of the proprietor Samuel Bennett, "the best friend I ever had" Heaton called him, and on 16 July 1873 married his daughter Rose. In 1879 he published The Australian Dictionary of Dates and Men of the Time, the first Australian book of reference of real importance, and a conscientious and generally sound piece of work. In 1882 he stood for parliament for the electorate of Young, and was defeated by a few votes. In the following year he went to England and represented New South Wales as a commissioner at the Amsterdam exhibition. He also represented Tasmania at the international telegraphic conference held at Berlin, and made his first mark as a reformer by obtaining a reduction in the cost of cable messages to Australia. He settled in London in 1884 and at the general election held in 1885 was returned as conservative member for Canterbury. He held this seat for 25 years, and became well-known in the house of commons for the special interest he showed in postal questions. In 1886 he moved a resolution inviting the government to negotiate with other governments with a view to the establishment of universal penny postage. It was defeated, but he succeeded in 1890 in obtaining a reduction in the rate between Great Britain and Australia to twopence halfpenny. In 1898 Imperial penny postage came in except for Australia and New Zealand, who would not agree to it until 1905. It was extended to America in 1908 but still Heaton was not content, and to the end of his days continued to advocate its extension to other countries. His interest, however, did not only lie in the obtaining of reductions in the cost of postage. He was able to point out to the postmaster-general various methods of saving costs, and as a result of his efforts considerable savings were made. Heaton made several visits to Australia where he had land and newspaper interests, and began to be recognized as its unofficial member in the house of commons. He several times refused a knighthood, but valued very much the bestowal of the freedom of the cities of London and of Canterbury in 1899. In 1912 while on a visit to Australia he was made a baronet, and on his return he was publicly welcomed at the Guildhall and given an illuminated album containing over a thousand signatures of well-known men. The postmaster-general, who could not be present, mentioned that in 1910 Heaton on his sixty-second birthday had sent him a list of 62 desirable postal reforms, several of which had already been carried into effect. In August 1914 he became seriously ill while travelling on the continent and died at Geneva on 8 September 1914. Lady Heaton survived him and his son John became 2nd baronet. His Life and Letters by his daughter, Mrs Adrian Porter, was published in 1916.
Heaton was an amiable man with the gift of persistency. He had no special ability as a speaker but, specializing in everything relating to the postal department, he became a formidable critic, and brought about many reforms not only by reducing postage rates but in connexion with parcels post, telegrams, the telephone, and money orders. Underlying all his work was the feeling that the removal of obstacles to communications between different parts of the world would lead to better knowledge and better feeling between nations.
Mrs Adrian Porter, The Life and Letters of Sir John Henniker Heaton Bt.; The Times, 9 September 1914.
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HEBBLETHWAITE, JAMES (1857-1921),poet, |
was born at Preston, England, in 1857. His family was originally prosperous but met with heavy financial losses, and Hebblethwaite practically educated himself by gaining scholarships. He was at St John's College, Battersea, London in 1877-8, and entering on a teaching life became headmaster of a board school, and lecturer in English at the Harris Institute, Preston. In 1892 he emigrated to Tasmania for health reasons, and obtained a position on the staff of the Friends' School, Hobart. In 1896 a little volume, Verses, was published at Hobart. About this time he entered the Congregational ministry, and in 1899 was principal of Queen's College, Latrobe, Tasmania. In 1900 A Rose of Regret was published. He was ordained as a deacon in the Church of England in 1903 and in 1904 became a priest. He was vicar of George Town, Tasmania, from 1905 to 1908, Swansea from 1908 to 1909, and D'entrecasteaux Channel from 1909 to 1916, when he retired. Another volume, Meadow and Bush, had appeared in 1911, and a collected edition of his poems in 1920. New Poems was published in 1921 and he died in that year. In addition to his poetry he wrote a novel, Castle Hill, published in England in 1895. He was twice married and left a widow and one son.
Hebblethwaite was a man of charming personality. Apparently immersed in a world of dreams, he never allowed himself to neglect his work as a parish clergyman. He was interested in his young men and their sports, and his own simple and sincere piety earned him much respect and affection. As a writer of lyrical poems he has a secure place among the Australian poets of his time.
A. G. Stephens, Note to A Rose of Regret; Crockford's Clerical Directory, 1921; private information.
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HEDLEY, CHARLES (1862-1926),naturalist, |
son of the Rev. Canon T. Hedley, was born at the vicarage, Masham, Yorkshire, on 27 February 1862. On account of delicate health he had only two years at Eastbourne College, but his education was continued by his father, a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. While wintering in the south of France he met George French Angas (q.v.) who gave him a letter of introduction to Dr G. Bennett (q.v.) of Sydney. In 1881 Hedley went to New Zealand and in September 1882 to Sydney. He was suffering from asthma and after trying the dry interior found he was in better health when near the sea. He took up an oyster lease at Moreton Bay, Queensland, and then tried fruit-growing at Boyne Island, Port Curtis. His first published paper, "Uses of Some Queensland Plants", was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland in 1888, and in the same year he came to Brisbane. He did some voluntary work for the Queensland museum and on 1 January 1889 was appointed a supernumerary officer of it. In July he became honorary secretary of the Royal Society of Queensland, and in 1890, at the invitation of the administrator, Sir William Macgregor (q.v.), he visited New Guinea, did some exploring, and made important collections. He was much interested in New Guinea but contracted fever and towards the end of 1890 went to Sydney. He made his home there for the rest of his life. In April 1891 he joined the Australian museum staff as assistant in charge of land shells, and about five years later was appointed conchologist. Early in 1896 the local committee of the "Funafuti Coral Reef Boring Expedition of the Royal Society" (London) suggested to the trustees of the Australian museum that one of their officers should accompany the expedition, and Hedley was selected. He left in May, and during his stay on Funafuti made an interesting collection, particularly of Invertebrate and Ethnological objects. The descriptions of these were published in Memoir III of the Australian Museum Sydney between 1896 and 1900. Hedley himself was responsible for the "General Account of the Atoll of Funafuti", "The Ethnology of Funafuti" and "The Mollusca of Funafuti". He also contributed two articles in 1902 and 1903 on the "Mollusca" included in the Scientific Results of the Trawling Expedition of H.M.C.S. "Thetis", published as Memoir IV of the Australian Museum Sydney.
Hedley was a keen explorer and visited most of the coast of eastern Australia, and the Gulf of Carpentaria, New Guinea, New Caledonia, and the Ellice Group. In later life he visited Canada and Alaska (1922), and Africa (1925). His chief interest was in the study of the Great Barrier Reef. He had become assistant curator of the Australian museum in 1908 and in 1920 he succeeded R. Etheridge Jnr. (q.v.) as principal keeper of collections. He resigned in 1925 to become scientific director of the Great Barrier Reef Investigation Committee. Between April and August 1926 he was supervizing the sinking of a bore on Michaelmas Reef near Cairns, and he returned to Sydney in August intending to visit Japan in connexion with the third Pan-Pacific Science Congress. Not being well he decided to abandon the journey, and though it was hoped that a rest would restore his health, he died suddenly on 14 September 1926. He married and left a widow and an adopted daughter.
Hedley was on the council of the Linnean Society of New South Wales from 1897 to 1924 and was president from 1909 to 1911; he was on the council for 16 years of the Royal Society of New South Wales and was president in 1914; he was a vice-president of the Malacological Society of London from 1923. He was awarded the David Syme prize in 1916, and in 1925 received the Clarke memorial medal from the Royal Society of New South Wales. A man of invariable courtesy and kindliness, held in the highest regard by contemporary scientists, his knowledge was always at the disposal of younger naturalists and visiting scientists. His work, and especially in regard to the zoo-geographical history of the Pacific, gave him a high place among Australian zoologists. A list of 156 published research papers written by himself, and 15 in association with others, was printed in 1924.
Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, 1927, vol. LII, p. VII; The Australian Museum Magazine, July-Sept. 1926, p. 403; Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. LXI, p. 10; Australian Museum, Sydney, Memoir III, Introductory note; The Sydney Morning Herald, 15 September 1926.
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HENEY, THOMAS WILLIAM (1862-1928),journalist and poet, |
son of T. W. Heney, journalist, was born at Sydney on 5 November 1862, and was educated at Cooma. Joining the staff of the Sydney Morning Herald as an assistant reader in 1878, he became a reporter on the Daily Telegraph six years later. He was editor of a paper at Wilcannia in 1886 but returned to Sydney in 1889 and worked on the Echo until it ceased publication in 1893. He then rejoined the Herald as a reviewer and writer of occasional leaders, was appointed associate editor in 1899, and editor in October 1903. He held this position until 1918 and was subsequently editor of the Brisbane Telegraph from 1920 to 1923, and the Sydney Daily Telegraph from 1923 to 1925. He retired on account of ill health in 1925, and died at Springwood in the Blue Mountains on 19 August 1928. He married in 1896 Amy, daughter of Henry Gullett, who survived him with a son and two daughters.
Heney was a quiet and modest man and a first-rate journalist, with a sense of the responsibility of his office as an editor. He published two volumes of poetry, Fortunate Days in 1886 and In Middle Harbour in 1890; but though he is represented in several anthologies his cultivated verse seldom reaches beyond the edge of poetry. His novel, The Girl at Birrell's, is a simple story of pastoral life told with some ability. Another novel, A Station Courtship, was also written by him. It may have been serialized, but no copy in book form could be traced, and it is not in the English or British Museum catalogue.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 August 1928; E. Morris Miller, Australian Literature; A Century of Journalism.
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HENTY, EDWARD (1810-1878),pioneer, first permanent settler in Victoria, |
was born at West Tarring, Sussex, England. The date of birth usually given is 10 March 1809, but the death notice in the Argus on 15 August 1878 stated he was in his sixty-ninth year, and the date of birth given on his tombstone at Kew is 28 March 1810. His father, Thomas Henty, who came of a well-known Sussex banking family, married Frances Elizabeth Hopkins, and Edward was their third son. The elder Henty inherited �30,000 on reaching his twenty-first year, bought the property generally called the Church Farm at West Tarring, and gave much attention to the breeding of merino sheep. Some of these were sent to Australia in 1821 and brought high prices. The family was a large one, eventually seven sons and one daughter grew to maturity, and it was thought that there might be better opportunities for the sons in Australia than in England. In 1829 James Henty (q.v.), the eldest son, went to Western Australia with two brothers, Stephen and John. They remained for two years and then left for Tasmania. In the meanwhile Thomas Henty had sold his English property and also sailed for Tasmania. He arrived at Launceston in April 1832 with three more of his sons, Charles, Edward and Francis. It was difficult to find suitable land in Tasmania, and Edward was sent to explore the coast of the mainland. He reported that the district near Portland Bay had good possibilities, and after revisiting it with his father it was decided that the land was suitable for settlement. Edward went first on the Thistle with labourers, stock, potatoes and seed. After a voyage of 34 days the Thistle arrived at Portland Bay on 19 November 1834. Edward Henty was only 24 years old and early in December, using a plough he had made himself, he turned the first sod in Victoria. The next voyage of the Thistle brought his brother Francis with additional stock and supplies, and in a short time houses were erected and fences put up.
The British government had been so anxious to have land taken up in Western Australia, that the Hentys not unnaturally thought no objections would be raised to their obtaining land in the Port Phillip district. Application was first made in 1834 and negotiations continued for many years. The father, Thomas Henty, died in 1839, and it was not until 1846 that the matter was finally settled, when the Hentys were allowed �348 for improvements at the port, and were granted 155 acres of land valued at �1290. The remainder of their land they had to buy at auction. The obstructive attitude of the government at Sydney to new settlers may be illustrated by an extract from a dispatch of the governor, Sir George Gipps (q.v.), to Lord John Russell, dated 11 April 1840. "The Messrs Henty, like the first settlers at Port Phillip, claim to have rendered good service to the government and to the colony of New South Wales by opening a district of country, which might otherwise have remained unoccupied for a number of years; but, so far from considering this any advantage, I look upon it as directly the reverse, not only because the dispersion of our population is increased by it, but because also we are forced prematurely to incur considerable expense in the formation of new establishments. I have already, in consequence of the proceedings of the Messrs Henty, been obliged to send two expeditions to Portland Bay, and I am now under the necessity of organizing a police force there, and of laying out a town, besides incurring expense for the protection of the aborigines." The thought that the many thousands of pounds spent by the Hentys in developing the country might eventually be of benefit to the state had apparently not entered into the minds of the authorities. Neither could they have anticipated that the first sale of crown lands which took place a few months later would yield the sum of �17,245.
Edward Henty was not discouraged. His brother, Francis, had joined him in December 1834, and during the next five years other members of the family joined him, and gradually the whole of their horses, cattle and sheep were transferred from Tasmania. On 29 August 1836 the exploring party headed by Major Thomas Livingstone Mitchell (q.v.) reached Portland Bay and were amazed to find the country inhabited. In later years Edward Henty was fond of telling the story of Major Mitchell when he came to a hut, from which blows of a hammer rang, saying, "Where is Mr Henty, my man," and the reply of the burly blacksmith, "Here he is at your service." From Major Mitchell Henty learned the character of the land to the north, and gradually he was able to acquire more land. In 1845 he had over 70,000 acres. Sometimes the price of wool and sheep fell very low and it was impossible to sell either to advantage; but over the years the stations prospered. In 1855 Edward Henty was elected a member of the legislative assembly for Normanby and was re-elected in 1859. He was defeated in 1861 and did not sit again in parliament. His last years were spent in retirement at Melbourne and he died on 14 August 1878. In October 1840 he married Annie Maria Gallie who survived him. They had no children.
Edward Henty in addition to being the first permanent settler in Victoria was the founder of the wool industry in that colony. He was a man of strict integrity and great courage who quickly adapted himself to the conditions of his new country. Victoria was fortunate in having so fine a type of man for its first citizen. His portrait is in the historical collection at the Melbourne public library. His brother James is noticed separately. Of his other brothers, Stephen George (1811-1872) was a member of the legislative council of Victoria, 1856-70. Francis (1815-1889) became the successful owner of a station and died at Melbourne on 15 January 1889. William (c. 1809-1881) went to Tasmania and for over 20 years from 1837 practised as a solicitor. In 1857 he was elected a member of the legislative council for Tamar and was colonial secretary in the Weston (q.v.) cabinet. He held this office for five and a half years. He went to England in 1862, eventually settled at Brighton where he died on 11 July 1881, and was survived by a daughter. He was interested in Shakespeare and after his death a small volume by him, Shakespeare with some Notes on his early Biography, was printed for private circulation. This has little value but contains a memoir of the author by R. Harrison.
Rev. G. Henty Balfour, The Victorian Historical Magazine, February 1931; E. Henty Smalpage, Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. XXI, pp. 73-83; R. D. Boss, First Years at Port Phillip; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. XX to XXII; Men of the Time in Australia, 1878; D. Blair, The Cyclopaedia of Australasia; N. F. Learmonth, The Portland Bay Settlement; A. S. Kenyon, papers at P. L. [Public Library?] Melbourne; P. Mennell, The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.
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HENTY, JAMES (1800-1882),pioneer and merchant, |
eldest son of Thomas Henty and brother of Edward Henty (q.v.), was born at West Tarring, Sussex, on 24 September 1800. He for a time assisted his father in farming, and then joined the family bank, Henty and Henty and Olliver; but when the family decided to try its fortunes in Australia he went out with two brothers as the advance party. They had obtained an order to select 80,000 acres at Swan River, Western Australia and, having chartered a vessel and loaded her with their stock and implements, they arrived at what is now Fremantle in November 1829. There were many early difficulties for comparatively little good land could be found, some of the sheep died from eating a poisonous plant, and others were killed by dingoes. They might possibly have had troubles with the natives but Henty succeeded in conciliating them. After two years it was decided to move to Tasmania, but it was found that the conditions governing land grants had been altered and it was practically impossible to obtain the land they wanted. James Henty then started as a merchant at Launceston and when his father arrived he was sent to England to put their case before the government. He returned in 1835 having failed in his mission. The long-drawn-out negotiations which followed caused much anxiety and probably conduced to the death of both of his parents in 1839.
In 1842 Henty was offered a seat in the Tasmanian legislative council but declined it. He visited England in 1848 and in 1851 settled at Melbourne where he established the flourishing business of James Henty and Company, merchants. In 1852 he was elected a member of the old legislative council for Portland, and afterwards was one of the members for the South-Western Province for a long period. He did not take an important part in parliamentary work, but was one of the early promoters of the first Victorian railway, the Melbourne and Hobson's Bay railway, of which he was chairman of directors. He was a commissioner of savings banks and took a leading part in the business life of Melbourne. He died in 1882. He had married in 1830 Miss Carter of Worthing. His son, Henry Henty (1833-1912), was a member of the legislative assembly for a short period, and succeeded his father as a commissioner of savings banks. He took a great interest in the Church of England, and, carrying on the family tradition, was a much respected man of business.
R. G. Henty Balfour, Victorian Historical Magazine, February 1931; Men of the Time in Australia, 1878.
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HERBERT, SIR ROBERT GEORGE WYNDHAM (1831-1905),first premier of Queensland, colonial official, |
was the only son of the Hon. Algernon Herbert, a younger son of the first Earl of Carnarvon. He was born on 12 June 1831 and was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. He won a Balliol scholarship in 1849 and subsequently the Hertford and Ireland scholarships. He took a first class in classical moderations, won the Latin verse prize in 1852, and obtained second-class final honours in the classical school. He was elected fellow of All Souls in 1854 and was Eldon law scholar. In 1855 he was private secretary to W. E. Gladstone and was called to the bar of, the Inner Temple in 1858. When Queensland was formed into a separate colony Sir George Ferguson Bowen was appointed the first governor. He arrived at Brisbane on 10 December 1859 and brought Herbert with him as his private secretary. On the day of the governor's arrival Herbert was gazetted as colonial secretary with Ratcliffe Pring as attorney-general. These with the governor formed an executive council to which additions were made afterwards. At the election held early in 1860 Herbert was returned unopposed for one of the Leichhardt seats in the legislative assembly and became the first premier of Queensland. He showed himself to be a good leader and held office from December 1859 to February 1866. Four land acts were passed, and the education question was also the subject of early measures. The governor, in writing to the secretary of state, stated that the Queensland parliament "had passed a greater number of really useful measures than any other parliament in any of the Australian colonies". Certainly the first Queensland government was in marked contrast to those of the other colonies, each of which averaged half a dozen ministries in the same period. Herbert, however, fell into some disfavour when financial difficulties arose. He resigned in February 1866 and was succeeded by A. Macalister (q.v.) who was premier until 20 July 1866. Herbert was anxious to return to England on account of private business, but at the request of the governor formed a ministry which lasted less than three weeks and was merged in the second Macalister ministry. Herbert then left for England, having gained much experience which was to be very useful to him in later years.
A few months after Herbert's arrival in England he was appointed assistant-secretary to the board of trade, in 1870 was made assistant under-secretary for the colonies, and in 1871 became permanent under-secretary for the colonies. He held this position for 21 years with great distinction. His attitude was generally conciliatory and he was tactful in dealing with men who came in contact with him. He left the colonial office in 1892, but afterwards took up his duties again for a few months at the special request of Joseph Chamberlain. In 1893-6 he was agent-general for Tasmania, and did active work in connexion with the formation of the British Empire League. In December 1903 he was chairman of the tariff commission. He died in England On 6 May 1905. He was unmarried. In 1882 he was created K.C.B. and in 1892 G.C.B. In the same year he was appointed chancellor of the Order of St Michael and St George.
Herbert was a young man of 28 when he was appointed premier, and a tradition appears to have grown up that he was something of a pedant and rather conscious of his own importance. He was of course quite without experience but had qualities as a leader which held his team together. His term of office was long a record in Queensland politics. He was not a great speaker, but he had the common sense to realize what could and could not be done in a community with a population of about 25,000, and he laid foundations on which other men have been able to build.
Burke's Peerage, 1905; The Times, 8 May 1905; Our First Half-Century; A Review of Queensland Progress; C. A. Bernays, Queensland Politics During Sixty Years; Sir G. F. Bowen, Thirty Years of Colonial Government; P. Mennell, The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.
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