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DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALIAN BIOGRAPHYAngus and Robertson--1949I-KMain Page and
Index of Individuals
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ILLINGWORTH, NELSON (1862-1926),sculptor, |
was born at Portsmouth, England, in August 1862. He studied at the Lambeth art school and worked as a modeller at the Doulton potteries. He emigrated to Sydney in 1892, and in 1895 his head of an Australian aboriginal was bought for the national gallery at Sydney. Other busts were purchased for the same gallery in 1896 and 1900. Illingworth did some architectural sculpture for buildings in Sydney, and a large number of portrait busts of notable men of his time. He also went to New Zealand and modelled some busts of Maori chiefs for the government. He was preparing models for the Henry Lawson (q.v.) statue competition when he died suddenly on 26 June 1926. He left a widow, two sons and two daughters. He was a well-known and well-liked figure in the art world of Sydney.
W. Moore, The Story of Australian Art; The Sydney Morning Herald and The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 28 June 1926.
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INNES, FREDERICK MAITLAND (1816-1882),premier of Tasmania, |
was born in Scotland on 11 August 1816, the son of an officer in the army. On leaving school he entered the office of his uncle, a writer to the signet at Edinburgh, but soon emigrated to Tasmania where he arrived in 1833. A few years later he returned to Great Britain, and contributed to the press in London, and to the Penny Cyclopaedia. He again went to Tasmania and was associated with the Observer and other papers at Hobart. About the year 1846 he was working as a journalist at Launceston, and later took up farming. With the coming in of responsible government he was elected in September 1856 as member for Morven in the house of assembly. He was colonial treasurer in four successive ministries, the first Weston (q.v.), the Francis Smith (q.v.), the second Weston, and the T. D. Chapman (q.v.), from 25 April 1857 to 1 November 1862, and colonial secretary from 1 November 1862 to 20 January 1863. He had now become a member of the legislative council, in 1864 was elected chairman of committees, and from 1868 to 1872 president of the council. He then resigned his seat and re-entered the house of assembly. On 4 November 1872, allying himself with some members he had previously opposed, he became premier and colonial secretary until 4 August 1873, when the Kennerley (q.v.) ministry came in and Innes found himself isolated. In March 1875 rather to the surprise of his former friends he joined this ministry as colonial treasurer, and held this position until July 1876. He then retired from the house of assembly, was elected to the legislative council in September 1877, and in 1880 was again made president of the council. He died at Launceston on 11 May 1882. He married a Miss Grey who survived him with sons and daughters.
Innes, an able man of moderate views, was an excellent treasurer. When he first took office the finances of the colony were in a very serious condition, and he carried a heavy burden during his five and a half years of office. But neither parliament nor people were prepared to face the extra taxation involved, though Innes put the position quite clearly in his financial statement made early in 1862. During the following 20 years he took a prominent part in the political life of Tasmania.
The Mercury, Hobart, 13 May 1882; J. Fenton, A History of Tasmania; J. H. Heaton, Australian Dictionary of Dates.
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IRONSIDE, ADELAIDE ELIZA (1831-1867),painter, |
was born in Sydney on 17 November 1831. From a child she showed literary ability, contributing to the press both in prose and verse. In 1855 she decided to study painting in Europe, and towards the end of that year went with her mother to London. She had a letter of introduction to Sir James Clark, through whom she met Ruskin who showed much interest in her work. From London she went to Rome and remained there for the rest of her life. In 1862 she was represented in the New South Wales court of the London exhibition, and her two pictures received good notices from the critics. In Rome she had an excellent reputation as a painter, at the time of her death a fellow artist spoke of her flowers "painted as never were flowers painted before . . . her rich Titian-like colouring united to a purity of feeling that recalled the visions of Beato Angelico". She sold paintings to among others the Prince of Wales and W. C. Wentworth (q.v.), but she was of a delicate constitution and died at Rome at the age of 35 on 15 April 1867. Good as her reputation was in Rome she was soon forgotten in her native country, and no specimen of her work is in any of its national galleries. Three of her pictures, "The Pilgrim of Art", "The Marriage in Cana", and "The Presentation of the Magi" were sent to Australia and lent to the national gallery at Sydney, where Francis Adams (q.v.) found them about 1888 stored "in a sort of shed" as there was "not room enough in the gallery". Adams praised them highly, and suggested that room might be found in the Melbourne gallery by taking out three by Folingsby (q.v.), and putting Miss Ironside's pictures in their place. They eventually found a home in the dining hall of St Paul's College, Sydney university.
J. H, Heaton, Australian Dictionary of Dates; W. Moore, The Story of Australian Art; The Athenaeum, 11 May 1867; F. W. L. Adams, Australian Essays, pp. 58-9; Sir William Dixson, Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. VII, p. 159.
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IRVING, MARTIN HOWY (1831-1912),educationist, |
was born in London on 21 February 1831. He was the son of Edward Irving, founder of the Catholic Apostolic Church, whom Carlyle called the "freest, brotherliest, bravest human soul mine ever came in contact with", and his wife Isabella Martin. He was educated at King's College, London, and Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1853 and M.A. in 1856, with first class honours in classics and second class honours in mathematics. After a few months as second master at the city of London school, he was appointed professor of classics and English at the university of Melbourne, where he arrived in July 1856. He held this position for nearly 15 years. He took much interest in the development of the young university, but in January 1871 he resigned to become headmaster of Wesley College. He had been offered a salary much larger than he had been receiving as a professor, and this no doubt influenced his decision as he had a growing family. But there was another factor. In the early years of the university students were few, many of them had not been properly prepared for university work, and probably Irving felt he would be doing a real service by helping to raise the standard of secondary school education. At Wesley he was a great success, and by the end of 1874 the number of pupils had risen to 271, a record not exceeded until about 30 years later. He appealed to what was best in the boys' natures, and his relations with his masters were as happy as those with the boys. Samuel Alexander (q.v.) who was a pupil in his period has testified to the excellence and breadth of the education he received at this school.
At the end of five years at Wesley, Irving decided that he would prefer the control of a school untrammelled by any committee or council. He bought the Hawthorn grammar school and made it one of the most successful private schools in Melbourne, with a roll of 200 boys, 50 of whom were boarders. In 1884 he handed over the school to his son, E. H. Irving, and became a member of the public service board of Victoria for a period of 10 years. He had retained his interest in the university after giving up his professorship, was a member of the council for some years, and at the election for chancellor in 1886 was defeated by one vote, (Sir) Anthony Colling Brownless receiving six votes to his five. He was soon afterwards elected vice-chancellor and held the position for two years. In earlier years he had been much interested in the volunteer movement and the militia, in which he attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He retired from the public service board in 1894 with a pension, and in 1900 went to England and devoted himself to the affairs of the Catholic Apostolic Church, of which he had always been an adherent. He visited Victoria for a few weeks in 1906, and returning to England died at Albury near London on 23 January 1912. He was twice married (1) to Caroline Mary Brueres, (2) to Mary Mowat, and was survived by five sons and seven daughters. He was given the honorary degree of LL.D. by the university of Glasgow in 1902.
Irving, who was well over six feet high, and an excellent oarsman and rifle shot, was the founder of amateur rowing in Victoria. He was a man of fine character with a good sense of business, and was a strong influence in the development of both secondary and university education in Victoria. Two of his daughters carried on the tradition for many years as principals of Lauriston Girls' School, Melbourne. One of his sons, Godfrey George Howy Irving (1867-1937), joined the Australian permanent military forces and led the Australian Commonwealth horse in the South African war. He was chief of the Australian general staff in 1913, and in command of the 14th infantry brigade in Egypt in 1916. After his return to Australia he was promoted major-general and was deputy quartermaster-general until his retirement in 1922. He died on 11 December 1937.
The Argus, Melbourne, 25 January 1912; The Times, 24 January 1912; The History of Wesley College, 1865-1919; Sir Ernest Scott, A History of the University of Melbourne; The Argus, 13 December 1937; C. E. W. Bean, Official History of the War of 1914-1918; John Lang, The Victorian Oarsman.
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JACK, ROBERT LOGAN (1845-1921),geologist, |
was born at Irvine, in Ayrshire, Scotland, on 16 September 1845. He was educated at the Irvine academy and Edinburgh university and, after some 10 years' experience with the geological survey of Scotland, was appointed geologist for northern Queensland in March 1876. He arrived in the colony in April 1877, and soon afterwards was made geologist for the whole colony. An early piece of work was an examination of the coal resources of the Cooktown district, and in August 1879 he began an exploring expedition to the most northerly part of Queensland in the hope that payable goldfields might be found. A second expedition was made towards the end of the year, and though no field of any great value was discovered, much was added to the knowledge of the country. The party endured many hardships and Jack himself was speared through the shoulder by hostile aborigines. In 1880 he published a work on the Mineral Wealth of Queensland, a Handbook to Queensland Geology appeared in 1886, and in 1892 with Robert Etheridge Jr (q.v.), The Geology and Palaeontology of Queensland and New Guinea was published in two volumes. He resigned his appointment in 1899.
In January 1900 Jack led an expedition to China starting from near Shanghai up the Yangtse Kiang River. In June, while at Chengtu, word was received of the Boxer rebellion, and the explorers, eventually found a way out through Burma. The Back Blocks of China, published in 1904, gives an account of the experiences of the party. In 1901 Jack returned to England and took up private practice, but in 1904 came to Australia again and did work for the government of Western Australia. From 1907 he resided at Sydney where he died on 6 November 1921. He was survived by a son, Robert Lockhart Jack, also well-known in Australia as a geologist. A large number of Jack's reports are listed on page IX, vol. I, The Geology and Palaeontology of Queensland and New Guinea. At the time of his death he had recently completed his Northmost Australia, an interesting account of exploration in northern Queensland, especially valuable for its accounts of the less known men, which was published in London in 1921. He was elected a fellow of the Geological Society in 1870, he received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Glasgow university, and in conjunction with Etheridge was awarded the Clarke memorial medal by the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1895.
The Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, 1922; The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 November 1921; E. W. Skeats, David Lecture, 1933; Some Founders of Australian Geology; Jack's own books.
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JACKSON, SIR CYRIL (1863-1924),educationist, |
eldest son of L. M. Jackson, was born in England on 6 February 1863. Educated at the Charterhouse and New College, Oxford, he graduated in 1885 with honours in classics. After leaving Oxford he took up social work at Toynbee Hall for about 10 years from 1885, and was central secretary of the children's holiday fund. He became a member of the London school board in 1891, and in 1896 was appointed inspector-general of schools in Western Australia. Education in this colony had been for many years in a pitifully primitive state, but in 1890 a forward step was made by the appointment of an Englishman, J. P. Walton, as inspector of schools. He pointed out how far behind the schools were lagging, and brought about many improvements. But the population was increasing very rapidly, numerous new schools were being built, and it was realized that the system would have to be completely re-organized. With Walton as his first assistant Jackson set vigorously to work. He had great educational knowledge and first rate executive ability, and the foundations on which future developments could be raised were securely laid. In 1899 a beginning was made with technical education, in the following year school fees were abolished, and in 1901 a college was built for the training of teachers. The designs of the schools, the staffing and equipment, were all greatly improved, and when Jackson returned to England in 1903 he left behind him a well-organized modern system of education.
In England Jackson became a chief inspector under the board of education until 1906, and found that his services were wanted in many directions. In 1907 he was elected a member of the London county council, and six years later became an alderman. For two years from 1908 he was chairman of the education committee. In 1910-11 he acted as agent-general for Western Australia, and among the other positions he filled were member of senate, university of London (1908-21), governor, Imperial college of science (1908-16), chairman, London intelligence committee on unemployment and distress (1914), chairman, London county council (1915), and member central appeal tribune (1915-16 and 1917-18). He did much war work and was vice-chairman of the war pensions committee. He represented the board of education at two conferences held in the United States, and found time to write two books, Unemployment and Trade Unions (1910), and Outlines of Education in England (1913). He also collaborated with A. Riley and M. E. Sadler in another, The Religious Question in Public Education. He never lost his interest in Western Australia and only two days before his death attended a meeting at the agent-general's office to give his advice on a Western Australian educational problem. He died on 3 September 1924. A man of great knowledge and wisdom his whole life was dedicated to the service of the public. He was created a K.B.E. in 1917.
Burke's Peerage, etc., 1924; The Times, 5 and 6 September 1924; Ed. by G. S. Browne, Education in Australia, 1927; Donald H. Rankin, The History of the Development of Education in Western Australia; H. Colebatch, A Story of a Hundred Years.
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JACOBS, JOSEPH (1854-1916),historian and folklorist, |
was born at Sydney on 29 August 1854, the son of John and Sarah Jacobs. He was educated at Sydney grammar school and at Sydney university, where he won a scholarship for classics, mathematics and chemistry. He did not complete a course at Sydney, but left for England at the age of 18 and entered St John's College, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. in 1876 (senior moralist), and in 1877 studied at the university of Berlin. He was secretary of the Society of Hebrew Literature from 1878 to 1884, and in 1882 came into prominence as the writer of a series of articles in The Times on the persecution of the jews in Russia. This led to the formation of the mansion house fund and committee, of which Jacobs was secretary from 1882 to 1900. During these years he gave much time to anthropological studies in connexion with the Jewish race, and became an authority on the question. In 1888 he prepared with Lucien Wolf Bibliotheca Anglo-Judaica: A Bibliographical Guide to Anglo-Jewish History, and in 1890 he edited English Fairy Tales, the first of his long series of books of fairy tales published during the next 10 years. He wrote many literary articles for the Athenaeum, a collection of which, George Eliot, Matthew Arnold, Browning, Newman, Essays and Reviews from the Athenaeum was published in 1891. In the same year appeared his Studies in Jewish Statistics, in 1892, Tennyson and "In Memoriam", and in 1893 his important book on The Jews of Angevin England. In 1894 were published his Studies in Biblical Archaeology, and An Inquiry into the Sources of the History of the Jews in Spain, in connexion with which he was made a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of History of Madrid. His As Others Saw Him, an historical novel dealing with the life of Christ, was published anonymously in 1895, and in the following year his Jewish Ideals and other Essays came out. In this year he was invited to the United States of America to give a course of lectures on the "Philosophy of Jewish History". The Story of Geographical Discovery was published towards the end of 1898 and ran into several editions. He had been compiling and editing the Jewish Year Book since 1896, and was president of the Jewish Historical Society of England in 1898-9. In 1900 he accepted an invitation to become revising editor of the Jewish Encyclopaedia which was then being prepared at New York.
Jacobs settled permanently in the United States. He wrote many articles for the Jewish Encyclopaedia, and was generally responsible for the style of the whole publication. It was completed in 1906, and he then became registrar and professor of English at the Jewish theological seminary of America at New York. In 1908 he was appointed a member of the board of seven, which made a new English translation of the Bible for the Jewish Publication Society of America. In 1913 he resigned his positions at the seminary to become editor of the American Hebrew. He died on 30 January 1916. He married Georgina Horne and there was a family of two sons and a daughter. In 1920 Book I of his Jewish Contributions to Civilization, which was practically finished at the time of his death, was published at Philadelphia. It is an excellent statement of the case, written clearly and quite objectively, the work of a fine scholar who claimed nothing he could not substantiate. In addition to the books already mentioned Jacobs edited The Fables of Aesop as First Printed by Caxton (1889), Painter's Palace of Pleasure (1890), Baltaser Gracian's Art of Worldly Wisdom (1892), Howell's Letters (1892), Barlaam and Josaphat (1896), The Thousand and One Nights (6 vols, 1896), and others. He was also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Hasting's Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.
The Times, 4 February 1916; Sydney University Calendar, 1877; The Jewish Encyclopaedia, vol. VII; Who's Who in America, 1914-15 and 1916-17; Dictionary of American Biography, vol. IX; prefatory statement, Jewish Contributions to Civilization.
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JAMES, WINIFRED LEWELLIN (1876-1941),miscellaneous writer, |
daughter of the Rev. Thomas James, was born at Windsor, near Melbourne, in 1876. She took up journalism in Melbourne, and in 1905 went to London where her first novel Bachelor Betty was published in 1907. It was followed by Patricia Baring in 1908, Saturday's Children, an Australian book for girls, in 1909, and Letters to my Son, 1910. This book had extraordinary success and reached an eighteenth edition in less than 10 years. More Letters to my Son, Letters of a Spinster, and A Sweeping came out in 1911. Three travel books followed, The Mulberry Tree (1913), A Woman in the Wilderness (1915), and Out of the Shadows (1924). A novel, Three Births in the Hemingway Family, was published in 1929, and in the following year two volumes of essays London is my Lute and A Man for England, which was also issued with the title A Man for Empire. Another book of travel, Gangways and Corridors, appeared in 1936. Miss James married in 1913 Henry de Jan of Louisiana, U.S.A., and Panama. The marriage was unfortunate and some years later Mrs de Jan divorced her husband. She returned to London and found that she had lost her nationality, and that she was an alien who must report to the police whenever she moved more than five miles from her residence. She eventually refused to report and after a fight extending over many years regained her nationality in 1935. She returned to Australia early in 1940, obviously a very sick woman, and died in Sydney on 27 April 1941. Another novel, The Gods Arrive, was published in Melbourne shortly after her death.
Winifred James was an experienced journalist but not an important writer, though her travel books have some interest. Her most successful book Letters to my Son, is a somewhat sentimental volume of little real distinction.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 April 1941; E. Morris Miller, Australian Literature; Publisher's note to The Gods Arrive; Who's Who, 1940; personal knowledge.
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JAMISON, SIR JOHN (1776-1844),pastoralist and public man, |
son of Thomas Jamison who arrived on H.M.S. Sirius as surgeon's mate, and was subsequently principal surgeon on the staff at Sydney. John Jamison was born in 1776, was educated as a surgeon, and joined the navy. While in the Baltic Sea he was successful in treating an outbreak of cholera in the Swedish army, and was made a knight of the order of Gustavus Vasa. His father having died in 1811 he succeeded to his property on the Nepean, and arrived at Sydney on 28 July 1814. He accompanied Macquarie (q.v.) on his visit to the Bathurst Plains in June 1815, but two and a half years later he was out of favour with the governor, who described him in a private dispatch as "intriguing and discontented". Jamison's possessions grew, he was one of the founders of the Bank of New South Wales in 1817, and he became one of the most prominent men of the time. In November 1824 he was included in the list of 10 men recommended for a colonial council, but about a year later Brisbane (q.v.) withdrew his nomination on account of charges Jamison had made that female convicts had been sent to Emu Plains for immoral purposes. The charges were held to be baseless, and in September 1826 Darling (q.v.) was instructed that Jamison was not to be given any civil offices. Jamison made various attempts to get this embargo removed, but nearly four years later the colonial office would give him no satisfaction. Darling in July 1829 mentioned that Jamison was then president of the Agricultural Society and "holding perhaps the largest stake in the country". In 1830 the Society for the Encouragement of Arts' Manufactures and Commerce, at London, awarded Jamison the large gold medal "for his successful method of extirpating the stumps of trees" (Transactions, 1831, p. xxix). Jamison was restored to the magistracy in 1831, and in October 1837 was appointed a member of the legislative council. In 1842 he established a cloth mill on his estate at Regentsville near Penrith. In July 1843 he was omitted from the legislative council nominations on account of his years and infirmities. He died at Regentsville on 29 June 1844.
Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. VIII to XXIV; Death notice The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 July 1844.
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JANSZ or JANSSEN, WILLEM (c. 1570-after 1629),first authenticated discoverer of Australia,[ also refer to Willem JANSZOON (a.k.a. JANSZ) page at Project Gutenberg Australia] |
was born possibly about 1570, probably at Amsterdam, Holland. Nothing is known of his early life, and he is first heard of in 1598 as a mate on the Hollandia, one of the vessels in the second Dutch fleet to voyage to the East Indies. He returned to Holland, and on 21 December 1599, having been promoted to the position of first mate, sailed again for the Indies. He made other voyages, but when he left Holland in December 1603 in command of the Duyfken, as part of a large fleet, the understanding was that this vessel was to remain in the east for three years, and endeavour to find new sources of trade. On 18 November 1605 Jansz left Bantam for Banda. From Banda an east-south-east course was taken to the Kei group, thence to Aru and the coast of New Guinea at De Jong's Point. Turning south the Gulf of Carpentaria was entered and the Australian coast was discovered at the mouth of the Pennefather River, on the Cape York peninsula, probably in March 1606. The course continued to latitude 13.59 when the Duyfken began her return journey. A visit was made to Prince of Wales Island, the New Guinea coast was again approached, and then a turn was made and Banda was reached in May 1606. For the first time some 200 miles of the Australian coastline had been charted, though Jansz was not aware it was not part of New Guinea.
Subsequently Jansz was in command of various vessels. He returned to Holland in 1611 when he was described in a letter from the chamber of Zeeland as "a very competent and sober man, who has pleased us greatly by his account of trade in the East". About the end of December 1611 he sailed again to the Indies in command of the Orangie. He became governor of Solor in 1614, and in 1617 made another visit to Holland. In January 1618 he went to Java as super-cargo on the Mauritius and arrived at Bantam on 22 August.
In October 1619 Jansz was sent with six ships against the British, surprised four ships which had been loading cargo on the west coast of Sumatra, and captured them. Peace with the British was made soon after and Jansz, who had been made an admiral, was engaged in a joint operation with them against the Philippines. For three and a half years from October 1623 Jansz was governor of Banda. He returned to Batavia in June 1627 and soon afterwards, as admiral of a fleet of eight vessels, went on a diplomatic mission to India. In December 1628 he sailed for Holland and on 16 July 1629 reported on the state of the Indies at The Hague. He was probably now about 60 years of age and willing to retire from his strenuous and successful life in the service of his country. Nothing is known of his last days.
T. D. Mutch, Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. XXVIII, pp. 303-52. Since reprinted as a pamphlet. This is the only source for information about Jansz in English. Mr Mutch acknowledges his summary of the career of Willem Jansz to the monograph by P. A. Leupe, Willem Jansz van Amsterdam, Admiral, an Willem Jansz van Amersfoort. The Dutch biographical dictionary, Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden, by A. J. Van der Aa (1860) simply says "Jansz or Janssen, Willem, of Amsterdam, was the discoverer of Australia in 1605 or 1606".
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JEFFERSON, JOSEPH (1829-1905),actor, |
son of Joseph Jefferson and his wife, Cornelia Frances Thomas, was born in Philadelphia, U.S.A., on 20 February 1829. Both his father and his grandfather were actors. The boy began his stage career at the age of four and he had little schooling. His father died when he was 13 and young Jefferson continued acting and helping to support the family. He saved money, visited Europe in 1856, and in November of that year joined Laura Keene's Company in New York and established a reputation as a first-rate actor. Early in 1861 his first wife died leaving him with four children; he had married at 21. His own health had not been good and he resolved to try new scenes. He played a season in San Francisco, and then sailed to Australia taking his eldest son with him. He arrived at Sydney in the beginning of November 1861, and played a successful season introducing to Australia Rip Van Winkle, Our American Cousin, The Octoroon and other plays. He opened in Melbourne on 31 March 1862, and had a most successful season extending over about six months. There was an excellent stock company at Melbourne which included Lambert, Stewart, Mrs Robert Heir and Rosa Dunn and the performances reached a very high standard. Seasons followed in the country and in Tasmania. In 1865 Jefferson with health recovered went to London and arranged with Dion Boucicault for a revised version of Rip Van Winkle. This was played in London with great success, and returning to America Jefferson made it his stock play, making annual tours of the states with it, and occasionally reviving The Heir-at-Law in which he played Dr Pangloss, The Cricket on the Hearth (Caleb Plummer) and The Rivals (Bob Acres). He became an institution in America, loved and respected by all for his great ability as an actor, and his fine personal character. With G. V. Brooke (q.v.) and Barry Sullivan (q.v.) he shared in a great period of dramatic art in Australia, and helped to lay the foundations for the future. He retired from the stage in May 1904 and died on 23 April 1905. He was married twice, and children by both marriages survived him. Two of his sons were capable actors, and a daughter married B. L. Farjeon (q.v.) the novelist. A list of Jefferson's parts will be found in Winter's book on the Jeffersons.
W. Winter, The Jeffersons; J. Jefferson, The Autobiography of Joseph Jefferson; Dictionary of American Biography, vol. X; F. Wilson, Joseph Jefferson.
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JENKINS, JOHN GREELEY (1851-1923),premier of South Australia, |
fourth son of Evan Jenkins and Mary Davis of South Wales, was born in Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on 8 September 1851. He was educated at the Wyoming Seminary, Pa., and after working on his father's farm, became in 1872 a traveller for a publishing company. He came to South Australia in 1878 as a representative of this company, but presently began importing both American and English books. He was for a time manager in South Australia for the Picturesque Atlas of Australasia, and afterwards was partner with C. G. Gurr in an estate agency and auctioneering business at Adelaide. In June 1886 he was elected a member of the house of assembly for East Adelaide and in 1887 transferred to the Sturt electorate, and represented it for several Years. In March 1891 he became minister of education in the second Playford (q.v.) ministry, and exchanged this for the portfolio of commissioner of public works in January 1892. The ministry resigned in June 1892 and on 20 April 1894 Jenkins was again given this position in the Kingston (q.v.) ministry which remained in office until 1 December 1899. A week later the second Holder (q.v.) ministry was formed with Benzins as chief secretary, and when Holder went into federal politics in May 1901, Jenkins became premier, chief secretary, and minister controlling the Northern Territory. On 1 March 1905 he resigned to become agent-general for South Australia at London. He gave up the position in 1908 on account of a disagreement with the Price (q.v.) government on the question of a loan. He remained in London and was active in connexion with international trade congresses but retained his interest in Australia. He was once described as "Australia's Unofficial High Commissioner". In 1918 he stood for Putney in an election for the British house of commons but was defeated. He had a good standing in the city of London, and when the chamber of commerce sent a delegation to the United States of America, Jenkins was the chief spokesman. He also revisited Australia with a project for the development of Papua. He died in London, following an operation, on 22 February 1923. He married Jeannie Mary, daughter of W. H. Charlton of Adelaide, who survived him with a son and a daughter. He published pamphlets on Australian Products, and Social Conditions of Australia, and also edited the Australasian section of the Encyclopaedia Americana. He was a fluent speaker with a gift of repartee, and a hard-working minister. As premier he took an important share of the work connected with ministerial bills, and among the acts he was responsible for were those providing free education, the Happy Valley water-supply system for Adelaide, and the trans-continental railway.
The Times, 23 February 1923; The Register, Adelaide and The Advertiser, Adelaide, 24 February 1923; Who's Who, 1923.
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JENNINGS, SIR PATRICK ALFRED (1831-1897),premier of New South Wales, |
was born at Newry, Ireland, in 1831, the son of Francis Jennings, a well-known merchant in that town. He was educated at Newry and at a high school at Exeter, England, and began a mercantile career. In 1852 he went to Australia and engaged in gold-inining at St Arnaud, Victoria, with success, bought a large pastoral property on the Murrumbidgee, and in 1862 removed to Warbreccan near Deniliquin. In 1863 he became interested in the movement to form the Riverina district into a separate province, and two years later was asked to go to England as a delegate to bring the grievances of the district before the English authorities. He declined on the ground that it should be possible to clear up the difficulties with the New South Wales government. He was nominated to the legislative council in 1867. He resigned in 1870 to enter the legislative assembly as member for the Murray, but after 1872 was out of politics for some years. He represented the colonies of New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania, at the Philadelphia exhibition in 1876, and subsequently visited Europe. He was elected to the assembly again in 1880 as member for Began and from January to July 1883 was vice-president of the executive council in the A. Stuart (q.v.) ministry. He was colonial secretary from October to December 1985 in the G. R. Dibbs (q.v.) ministry, and in February 1886 became premier and treasurer. His administration lasted only 11 months and had a troubled career; Jennings was scarcely a strong enough man to control a ministry which included Dibbs, J. H. Want (q.v.) and W. J. Lyne (q.v.). He represented New South Wales at the colonial conference held in London in 1887. He was nominated to the legislative council in 1890, and was one of the New South Wales representatives at the federal convention held at Sydney in 1891, but did not take a prominent part in the proceedings. He died at Brisbane on 11 July 1897. He married in 1864 Mary Ann Shanahan who died in 1887, and was survived by two sons and a daughter. He was a leading man among his co-religionists and was created Grand Cross of Pius IX by Pope Leo XIII. He was made an honorary LL.D. of Dublin university, and was created K.C.M.G. in 1880.
Jennings was an amiable, cultivated man much interested in art and music; he contributed ?1100 to Sydney university towards the cost of an organ for the great hall. He made many friends but was not a great parliamentarian, though he was a prominent figure in the public life of New South Wales for many years.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 July 1897; J. H. Heaton, The Australian Dictionary of Dates; Sir Henry Parkes, Fifty Years in the Making of Australian History.
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JOHNS, FRED (1868-1932),biographer, |
son of Ezekial Johns of Cornwall, England, was born at Houghton, Michigan, U.S.A., on 22 March 1868. He was educated in the west of England, and coming to Australia in 1884 obtained a position on the South Australian Register, and rose to be a sub-editor. In 1906 he published his Johns's Notable Australians, a volume of biographies of Australians then living. Later editions appeared in 1908, 1912, 1913, 1914, 1922, and 1927, the last two under the title Who's Who in Australia. In 1914 he was appointed a member of the State Hansard staff, of which he subsequently became the leader. In 1920 he published a small collection of patriotic verses, In Remembrance, which was followed two years later by A Journalist's Jottings, a collection of essays dealing mostly with well-known Australians. He also edited the South Australian Freemason 1920-5. He died at Adelaide on 3 December 1932. He married in 1894 Florence, daughter of R. D. Renfrey, who died in 1896. He was survived by a daughter. Under his will the sum of ?1500 was left to the university of Adelaide to found "The Fred Johns Scholarship for Biography". His An Australian Biographical Dictionary was not quite finished at the time of his death. It was completed by his friend B. S. Roach and published by his daughter in 1934. It contains about 3000 short biographies of eminent Australians, and has proved to be a very useful publication. His work is marked by great conscientiousness and care, and as a general rule is remarkably accurate.
The Advertiser, Adelaide, 5 December 1932; information supplied in his lifetime.
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JOHNSON, RICHARD (1753-1827),first clergyman in Australia, |
was born probably in 1753. Four different years have been given as the date of his birth, and the authorities also disagree in the details of his education. The most consistent account is in F. T. Whitington's life of Bishop Broughton (q.v.), which quotes a letter written in October 1786 by Henry Venn which gave Johnson's age then as 33. This agrees with the inscription on Johnson's monument which states he was aged 74 at the time of his death in 1827. He was the son of John Johnson and was born in Norfolk and educated at the grammar school of Kingston-upon-Hull, where he won a sizarship which took him to Cambridge in 1781. He graduated B.A. as a senior optime from Magdalene College in 1784. In 1786, through the influence of William Wilberforce and Pitt, Johnson was appointed chaplain at New South Wales; his commission was signed on 24 October. Two days before he had visited 250 of his future charges on board the hulk at Greenwich. He sailed with the first fleet, arrived on 26 January 1788 at Port Jackson, and shared in the early privations. Governor Phillip (q.v.) had first of all to find means of feeding and housing the soldiers and convicts, and labour could not be spared for the building of a church. Services were held in the open air and even four years later, when Johnson appealed to Phillip for churches at both Sydney and Parramatta, he had no success. Under lieutenant-governors Grose (q.v.) and Paterson (q.v.) Johnson was in even worse case. Grose made vague charges against him, but brought no evidence to substantiate them, and Johnson made many complaints about the treatment he received. He was married with a large family, and with a salary of only ?182 10s. a year he found it difficult to pay his way. He was given a grant of land and worked it so successfully with the help of some convict labour, that in November 1790 Captain Tench (q.v.) called him the best farmer in the country. He planted seeds of oranges and lemons he had obtained at Rio de Janeiro, which later on produced good crops of fruit, and occasional references are found to his having made a fortune by his farming; in all probability an overstatement of the case, though he sold his land and stock to good advantage when he left the colony. In June 1793, tired of waiting on the authorities, he began to build a church himself, and by September completed a building capable of holding 500 people at a cost of about ?67. Even allowing for the difference in the purchasing power of money and the comparative flimsiness of the structure, this was a remarkable achievement. This church was burnt down a few years later. An assistant chaplain, the Rev. Samuel Marsden (q.v.), was appointed in the same year, and arrived early in 1794; and henceforth Johnson had the support of a stronger personality than his own. In 1794 he published An Address to the Inhabitants of the Colonies established in New South Wales and Norfolk Island, and in 1800 obtained leave of absence to visit England. He sailed on the Buffalo in October and did not return to Australia. In June 1802 King in a dispatch said: "I understand that Rev'd Mr Johnson does not mean to return." Practically he retired in 1802, but so late as July 1805 he appears on a list of officers as "On leave in England, no successor or second clergyman appointed". In 1810 he was presented by the king to the united parishes of St Antholin and St John Baptist, in London, and at the time of his death he was also incumbent of Ingham in Norfolk. He died on 13 March 1827.
Johnson was a good man within his limits, but had no great force of character, not much tact, and a habit of complaining. He worked under many difficulties as a clergyman but pluckily stuck to his post, and he also deserves great credit for his work as a cultivator, when the little community was often near the edge of starvation.
F. S. Whitington, William Grant Broughton, pp. 3-11; J. Bonwick, Australia's First Preacher; Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. I, pp. 7, 43, 119; G. A. Wood, ibid, Vol. XII, pp. 237-70; Walter Hibble, ibid, vol. III, pp. 265-71; Historical Records of N.S.W., vols. I to V; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. I to V.
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JOHNSON, SIR WILLIAM ELLIOT (1862-1932),politician, |
was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne, on 10 April 1862, the son of a scene-painter. He ran away from home at 13, worked in the telegraph office at London, and afterwards assisted his father scene-painting at Covent Garden theatre. He was then apprenticed on a sailing-ship and after obtaining his second mate's certificate, settled in Sydney in 1883. He took much interest in the free-trade movement and was also a follower of Henry George. In December 1903 he was elected a member of the federal house of representatives for Lang, and held the seat until he was defeated at the general election in 1928. He was for some years whip and secretary to the Liberal party and was deputy-chairman of committees. He took much interest in the selection of the site for the federal capital, and nominated the Yass-Canberra site which was eventually chosen. In 1911 he was one of the Australian parliamentary representatives at the coronation of King George V. He was elected speaker of the house of representatives in 1913 and held this position until after the 1914 election. He was again speaker from June 1917 to February 1923 when W. A. Watt was chosen for the position. After his defeat at the 1928 election Johnson retired from politics. He died at Geelong, Victoria, on 8 December 1932. He married, but his wife died before him. He was survived by a daughter. He was created K.C.M.G. in 1920.
Johnson was a man of great industry who made it his business to be thoroughly acquainted with the subjects under debate. He was particularly interested in the question of immigration. As speaker he was quietly dignified, courteous and efficient. In private life his hobby was painting and etching. A set of his etchings is at the national library, Canberra.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 December 1932; The Age, Melbourne, 9 December 1932; Biographical Handbook and Record of Elections, Parliament of the Commonwealth, 1930.
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JOHNSTON, GEORGE (c. 1760-1823),lieutenant-governor of New South Wales, |
is stated to have been born at Annandale, Dunfrieshire, Scotland, on 19 March 1764 (H.R. of A., vol. VI, p. xxx). This may possibly have been a misprint, as he is also stated to have obtained a commission as second lieutenant of marines in 1776, and to have been promoted lieutenant in 1778. After service in America and the East Indies he went to New South Wales as lieutenant of marines with the first fleet. He acted as adjutant to Governor Phillip (q.v.), was sent to Norfolk Island in 1790, and transferred to the New South Wales Corps, of which he became a captain, in September 1792. In September 1796 he was appointed aide-de-camp to Governor Hunter (q.v.), and in 1800 received his brevet rank as major. In the same year he was put under arrest by Lieut.-colonel Paterson (q.v.) on charges of "paying spirits to a sergeant as part of his pay--and disobedience of orders". He objected to trial by court-martial in the colony, and Hunter sent him to England. There the difficulties of conducting a trial with witnesses in Australia led to the proceedings being dropped, and Johnston returned to New South Wales in 1802. In 1803 he took temporary command of the New South Wales Corps during the illness of Paterson, and became involved in the conflict between King (q.v.) and the military. In March 1804 he acted with decision when in command of the military sent against some convicts who had mutinied at Castle Hill. When Paterson was sent to Port Dalrymple Johnston became commander of the New South Wales Corps. On 26 January 1808 he led the troops that deposed Governor Bligh (q.v.), assumed the title of lieutenant-governor, and suspended the judge-advocate and other officials. This was quite illegal, the administration of justice became farcical, and there were signs of strong discontent among the settlers. Johnston was promoted lieutenant-colonel on 25 April 1808, and was superseded by his senior officer Foveaux on 28 July. He sailed for England with Macarthur in March 1809, and was tried by court-martial in May 1811. Found guilty of mutiny he was sentenced to be cashiered. This extremely mild sentence in the circumstances could only have been imposed by a court convinced that he had been the tool of other people. He returned to New South Wales as a private individual and lived on his land near Sydney. He died much respected on 5 January 1823, leaving a large family.
Johnston was a just and good officer who was personally popular and respected. But he was not strong enough to stand up against the turbulent spirits of his period, and it is generally considered that during his period of government Macarthur was the real administrator.
Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. I to VIII; Sydney Gazette, 9 January 1823 (for date of death).
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JOHNSTON, ROBERT MACKENZIE (1844-1918),statistician and man of science, |
was born near Inverness, Scotland, on 27 November 1844, the son of a crofter. He was educated at the village school where his ability was quickly recognized. He was influenced by the life of Hugh Miller whose books were lent to him. He obtained work on the railways, read widely, and studied botany, geology, and chemistry at Glasgow. Emigrating to Australia in 1870 he was given a position in the accountant's branch of the Launceston and Western District railway. He transferred to the government service in 1872, and in 1880 became chief clerk in the auditor-general's office. Two years later he was appointed registrar-general and government statistician. He was appointed a royal commissioner to report on the fisheries of Tasmania, also did much geological work, and in 1888 the government published his Systematic Account of the Geology of Tasmania. He was president of the economic and social science and statistics section at the meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science held at Melbourne in 1890, and with the coming of federation he was able to influence very much the special problems of finance that were raised. He originated the scheme of per-capita payments by the Commonwealth to the states that was eventually adopted. He was offered and declined the position of government statist for New South Wales, and declined to be a candidate for the position of Commonwealth statist. Apart from his official duties he was keenly interested in all branches of science, in music, and in education. He died at Hobart on 20 April 1918. He received the Imperial service order in 1903. A list of 103 of his papers is given in the Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania for 1918, of which over 50 are on geological subjects. In 1903 The R. M. Johnston Memorial Volume, being a selection from his more important papers, was published by the Tasmanian government.
Johnston was unassuming and of a most lovable disposition; a great public servant, whose advice on financial matters was always of much value to the ministers of the crown, he also did scientific work of outstanding value. His Geology of Tasmania was a remarkable piece of work, all the more so in that it was done by a man busily engaged in other directions.
Foreword and biographical notes, The R.M. Johnston Memorial Volume; Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, 1918; The Mercury, Hobart, 22 and 23 April 1918; E. W. Skeats, David Lecture, 1933; Some Founders of Australian Geology.
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JONES, SIR HENRY (1862-1926),man of business, |
son of John Jones, was born at Hobart on 19 July 1862. Educated at a state school, he went to work in a jam factory when he was 12 years old, and began with sticking labels on tins. He was always willing to work overtime, and saved the money he earned in this way. He presently became a foreman, and by 1891, when G. Peacock retired from the business, he was able to buy a controlling interest in it, and reconstruct it under the name of H. Jones and Company. The business grew and in 1898 the works were almost entirely refitted with new machinery. He began to extend his interest to the timber trade and hop industry, and the export of Tasmanian fruit in addition to his own preserves. In 1903 he took a leading part in the formation of the Tongkah Harbour Tin Dredging Company, which became very successful, and in 1909-10 a number of the mainland factories were amalgamated with his own into the H. Jones Co-operative Company. Branches of his own factory had been formed at Keswick, South Australia and Sydney. In 1911 he visited England with his family, and in 1914 went to America. Some five years later he established a factory at Oakland, near San Francisco, but this was afterwards sold. He succeeded in securing steamers to carry Tasmanian fruit to the English market, and though he made occasional losses he never ceased his efforts to increase the trade of his state. He was interested in early attempts to form a wood pulp industry, and was largely responsible for the erecting of woollen mills in Launceston by Kelsall and Kemp of Rochdale, England. Other interests included an orchard on the east coast of Tasmania worked largely on a co-operative system. He had become the leading business man of Tasmania, and continuing to work very hard his health became affected in the last two years of his life. He died suddenly at Melbourne on 29 October 1926. He was knighted in January 1919. He married in 1883 Alice Glover who survived him with three sons and nine daughters.
Jones was a keen business man who had made his own way, and had no faith in government interference with business. He was, however, a good employer, and it was said of him that "he talked to his employees with the same casual cheerfulness as he would with a cabinet minister". He on occasions shared his profits with employees, and his private benefactions were numerous. He declined to enter politics saying that his influence could be just as useful outside them. He had a quick brain and a great grasp of essentials, and no other man of his period did so much for the trade of Tasmania.
The Mercury, Hobart, 30 October 1926; The Examiner, Launceston, 30 October 1926; The Huon and Derwent Times, 17 December 1936; Debrett's Peerage, etc., 1926.
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JONES, SIR PHILIP SYDNEY (1836-1918),physician, |
son of David Jones, was born at Sydney on 15 April 1836. He was educated at private schools under W. T. Cape (q.v.), T. S. Dodds and H. Cary, and then proceeded to London to study medicine at University College. During his course he took the medals for anatomy and medicine, graduated M.B. in 1859, M.D. in 1860, and became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1861. He was awarded the Fellowes gold medal given to the most proficient student in clinical knowledge. He was house surgeon and physician and resident medical officer at University College hospital for a period, and then went to Paris, where he continued his studies in medicine and surgery for some months. Jones returned to Sydney in 1861, and was an honorary surgeon at the Sydney infirmary, afterwards the Sydney hospital, for 14 years, and also carried on a general practice in College-street. He was the first surgeon in Sydney to remove an ovarian tumour successfully. In 1876 Jones gave up general practice, and established himself as a consultant physician. He went to Europe for about three years in 1883, and spent much time studying developments in medicine and in hospital practice. Returning to Sydney he was appointed an honorary consulting physician to the Royal Prince Alfred hospital, and was then considered to be the leading physician in Sydney. He was unanimously elected president of the third intercolonial medical congress held in Sydney in 1892, and in 1896 and 1897 he was president of the New South Wales branch of the British Medical Association. In addresses to these bodies he stressed the value of fresh air, pure food, and uninfected milk, and he was quick in realizing the value of X-rays, and the promise of results to be obtained from serum therapy, then in its infancy. He was unceasing in his efforts for the effective treatment of consumption, and was a pioneer in New South Wales in the use of open air treatment. He was responsible for the opening of the Queen Victoria homes at Thirlmere and at Wentworth Falls for patients in the early stages of tuberculosis, and spent much time in the administration of these institutions. He had been one of the founders of the Royal Prince Alfred hospital and was a member of the board from 1878 to 1883. Rejoining the board of this hospital in 1904, he was chairman of its medical board for many years. He took much interest in education, became a member of the senate of the university in 1881, and was vice-chancellor, 1904-6. He was a trustee of the Australian museum, was connected with the Kindergarten Union, was an early member of the Linnean Society, and was for 51 years a member of the Royal Society of New South Wales. He was also actively interested in many charitable institutions and in Trinity church, Strathfield, of which he was a deacon. He died at Sydney on 18 September 1918. He married in 1863 Hannah Howard, daughter of the Rev. G. Charter, who died in 1892. He was survived by three sons and four daughters. He was knighted in 1905.
The Medical Journal of Australia, 28 September 1918; The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 September 1918; Burke's Peerage, etc., 1918.
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JORGENSEN, JORGEN (1780-1841),adventurer, |
was born at Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1780. His father, J?rgen J?rgensen was well-known as watch and clock-maker to the court of Denmark, and other members of his family held respected positions. His schooldays were unhappy and he was expelled at the age of 14. He was put to work in the country, and at his own request was soon afterwards sent to sea in an English ship. Four years on a collier taught him some seamanship, and being taken by a pressgang he served for some years on English men-of-war. At the Cape he joined the Lady Nelson in which he proceeded to Australia. He appears to have been a mate on the Lady Nelson when she went to Hobart in 1803. He was next on a sealer in New Zealand waters and then sailed for England on the Alexander. It put in to Otaheite after a storm and stayed two months. He gathered there the materials of his State of Christianity in the Island of Otaheite published in 1811. He reached England in June 1806, introduced himself to Sir Joseph Banks, and kept in touch with him for some years. Trapped in Copenhagen while visiting his parents when war was declared between Denmark and England, Jorgensen was given command of a small ship of war and sent to France to convey troops. On the way he was intercepted by H.M.S. Sappho and captured. He lingered in England for eight months on parole. Hearing that Iceland was short of food, he suggested to a merchant the advisability of sending a trading ship there and the Clarence was sent with Jorgensen on board as interpreter.
The Clarence arrived at the port of Havnefiord early in January 1809. Jorgensen advised that the vessel should hoist American colours, but it was afterwards disclosed that the ship was English. The Danish officials refused to allow any trading and the vessel was obliged to return. Jorgensen so impressed the owner with his personality that he lent him a thousand pounds to pay his debts, and fitted out a fresh expedition of two vessels the Margaret and Anne, and the Flora. Jorgensen and the owner sailed with it and also (Sir) William J. Hooker, then just beginning to make his reputation as a naturalist. They became great friends and Hooker kept his interest in Jorgensen even in his adversity. Nearing Iceland Jorgensen's seamanship saved the Margaret and Anne from running on a rock. When they arrived in June 1809 Count Trampe, the governor of the island, would permit no trading. On a Sunday, while most of the inhabitants were at church, a party of English seamen surrounded the governor's house while Jorgensen, the captain of the vessel, Mr Photos the owner and the agents, forced themselves into the governor's room and arrested him. Jorgensen then took charge of the governor's residence, ingratiated himself with the islanders, and drew up a proclamation addressed to them. Taxes were remitted, increases of salaries were given to the clergy, and the people were promised peace and cheap food. Jorgensen formed a small body guard and announced his full title "His Excellency, the Protector of Iceland, Commander in Chief by Land and Sea". He seized Danish property and was lavish with public money, made a tour of the island, and for several weeks everything went smoothly. Then H.M.S. Talbot, commanded by the Hon. Alexander Jonas, entered the harbour in August 1809. After some investigation the Danish government was restored and Jorgensen taken to England. On the voyage the Margaret and Anne took fire and was lost, and Jorgensen on the Orion was prominent in saving those on board. Arrived in London he was not molested until a week after the arrival of the Talbot, two weeks after his own vessel. He was then arrested and put in prison, where he heard that Banks had washed his hands of him though Hooker remained his friend. He was brought before the transport board which decided that he should be confined as a prisoner of war who had broken his parole. Jorgensen in confinement spent his time in voluminous literary work. After 11 months on a prison ship he was transferred to Reading on parole. He was 10 months there and was finally released about the middle of 1811.
In London for some months Jorgensen spent most of his time in drinking and gambling, until even the kindly Hooker would lend him no more money. Jorgensen then got a post as mate on a vessel bound for Lisbon where he left his vessel and went to the British front in Spain, got himself arrested as a suspicious character, and, free again, went back to Lisbon where he became penniless. He somehow found his way to Gibraltar. He represented that he had been engaged in naval service and was taken back to England in a hospital ship. He endeavoured to have some of his manuscripts published without success, managed to borrow more money, and wrote to the colonial office representing that he could obtain important information relating to an expedition concerted between the Americans and the French to be sent to capture the Australian colonies. He had gambled away everything he possessed and was in the fleet prison, when he was released by the foreign office and sent to the continent on secret service in June 1815. In the meantime the details of the supposed plot to invade Australia had been sent to Governor Macquarie (q.v.), who in his reply dated 30 April 1814 admitted the paucity of Australia's defences, but thought Bonaparte had too many commitments in Europe to enable him to spare forces to send to Australia. Jorgensen, in spite of occasional lapses into gambling and drinking, continued to be supplied with money from the foreign office, and presumably did obtain some information of value. From France he travelled to Germany where he was presented to Goethe. He lived for eight months at Berlin in a respectable way, but in November 1816 he fell among sharpers at Dresden and lost a considerable sum he had with him. In June 1817 he returned to London where he states he was handsomely rewarded for his services. He published his Travels through France and Germany in the years 1815-1817, a volume of over 400 pages which was unfavourably criticized in the Edinburgh Review, and was a complete failure. He began drinking and gambling again and presently was arrested on a charge of having pawned his landlady's furniture during her absence. He was found guilty and sentenced to transportation for seven years, but this was delayed, and in the meantime Jorgensen was given a position as assistant to the surgeon of Newgate gaol infirmary. He professed repentance and one Sunday was allowed to preach a sermon of his own composition to his fellow outcasts. He did his work well and in November 1821 was given his liberty on condition that he left England. But he did not carry out this condition, and in October 1822 was again arrested, sentenced to death and respited. He obtained his old position and again preached to the convicts. In October 1825 he was sentenced to transportation for life, and at the end of November was sent to Australia in the Woodman. He was employed in the infirmary and when later on the surgeon suddenly died, Jorgensen was put in charge of the hospital. There had been much sickness in the early stages of the voyage, but when the vessel arrived at the Cape there was not a single patient in the hospital.
The Woodman arrived in the Derwent on 26 April 1826 and Jorgensen was given a position in the naval office. A few weeks later when ?4000 was burgled from the treasury Jorgensen found the money and the robbers. Again in good favour with the authorities he was placed in charge of a surveying expedition in the north-west of the colony. He worked for three years in the country, and returning to Hobart became editor of a local newspaper for a short period. He had been given his ticket of leave and in 1828 received a conditional pardon. He was appointed a constable in the field police force and was successful in the struggle with the bushrangers. In 1830 he was engaged in the "Black War" against the aborigines. In January 1831 he married an ex-convict woman, Deborah Carbon, and settled in Hobart. There in that year he published his Observations on the Funded System. He began drinking heavily again, but about 1834 was given another chance as divisional constable at Rose, where he did good work against the bushrangers. Six months later, having received a family legacy of ?200, he returned to Hobart, spent his money and became bankrupt. He wrote his autobiography, the first portion of which appeared in the Van Diemen's Land Annual for 1835, the second in the 1838 volume. About 1840 (Sir) Joseph Dalton Hooker, then a member of an expedition to the Antarctic, son of Jorgensen's old friend, came to Hobart and found Jorgensen. His father had never forgotten his friend, but it was now too late for anything to be done for him. He died of inflammation of the lungs in the Hobart infirmary on 20 January 1841. The manuscript of the journal of his expeditions in 1826 and 1827 is at the Mitchell library, Sydney. Many other manuscripts are at the British Museum. In addition to the volumes already mentioned Jorgensen published in London in 1827 The Religion of Christ is the Religion of Nature.
Jorgensen had a remarkable personality ruined by complete instability of character. Confident, fearless, plausible, capable and unscrupulous, he could ingratiate himself with everyone, and, however far he might fall someone would throw him a rope to help him on his feet again. His amazing life of adventure has attracted many writers, the latest of whom, Rhys Davies, gives a bibliography of some 40 items at the end of his biography, Sea Urchin. Other references will be found on page one of J. F. Hogan's The Convict King. Much of the writing on Jorgensen is based on his autobiography which is not always accurate.
Rhys Davies, Sea Urchin; J. F. Hogan, The Convict King, which substantially reproduces Jorgensen's Autobiography; Marcus Clarke, Stories of Australia in the Early Days; Chas Knight, The English Cyclopaedia, Biography, vol. 3; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vol. VIII, pp. 72, 241, 653.
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JOSE, ARTHUR WILBERFORCE (1863-1934),historian and miscellaneous writer, |
was born at Bristol on 4 September 1863. He was a son of W. Wilberforce Jose for some years chairman of the technical education board, Bristol, and was educated at Clifton College, where he obtained a scholarship which took him to Balliol College, Oxford. About a year later his health broke down and he was sent to Australia in 1882 to recuperate. His father lost his money and a return to Oxford became impossible. Jose was offered a clerical position in Sydney but preferred to get Australian experience working in the country as a wood-chopper, cook, and fencing contractor. He then went to Hobart and was a tutor in a private family. In Tasmania he met the Rev. Edwin Bean, headmaster of All Saints' College, Bathurst, who offered him a position as assistant master. He was there for about nine years. In 1888, under the pseudonym of "Ishmael Dare", he published a volume of poems, Sun and Cloud on River and Sea, a pleasant collection of musical verses. He was appointed acting-professor of modern literature at Sydney university in 1893, and from 1893 to 1899 was organizing secretary of the university extension board. In September 1899 his history of Australia was published which was afterwards several times revised. The tenth edition, published in 1924, brought the number of copies issued up to 60,000. Jose then went to South Africa and for a short period was a war correspondent. Going on to London he published in 1901 The Growth of the Empire and in 1902 was appointed professor of English and History at the M.A.D. College, Aligarh, India. He soon returned to London where he became interested in the Imperial Tariff and Tariff Reform League, did some writing for the press, and in 1903 was appointed The Times correspondent in Australia. He held this position from 1904 to 1915 and fearlessly endeavoured to set out the Australian point of view. His Two Awheel and Some Others Afoot in Australia was published in London in 1903 with illustrations by G. W. Lambert (q.v.).
In 1915 Jose resigned his position with The Times and was attached to the in telligence branch of the Royal Australian Navy with the rank of captain. When the war was over he was appointed editor of the Australian Encyclopaedia, the first volume of which appeared in 1925 and the second in 1926. He then undertook the volume on the Royal Australian Navy in The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918 which appeared in 1928, as did also his Builders and Pioneers of Australia. Jose was in Europe between 1927 and 1932 and did reviewing for the Times Literary Supplement and other publications. His Australia Human and Economic appeared in 1932, and in January 1933 he returned to Australia and published The Romantic Nineties, a volume of essays and reminiscences. He died at Brisbane on 22 January 1934 and was survived by his wife and a son.
Jose has been described as one of the best Australians ever born and educated in England. He had a strong sense of justice and more than once was in trouble with The Times over such questions as the White Australia policy and the sincerity of the Australian Labour leaders. Without being a great writer he was exceedingly competent, and every one of his books, from his verse to his history writing, is good in its own way. There are few more interesting Australian books of their kind than Builders and Pioneers of Australia and The Romantic Nineties. His editing of the Australian Encyclopaedia was generally very good. A brother, the Very Rev. George Herbert Jose, born in 1868, came to Australia in 1903, became an archdeacon in 1927 and dean of Adelaide in 1933.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 23 January 1934; The Times, 23 January 1934; E. Morris Miller, Australian Literature; The Bulletin, 31 January 1934; A. W. Jose, The Romantic Nineties.
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KAVEL, AUGUSTUS (1798-1860),founder of German settlements in Australia, |
was born in Germany in 1798. He was pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church at Klemsig from 1826 to 1835. A new liturgy had been introduced into the German Protestant churches in 1822, which did not meet with general approval, was long resisted, and led to much persecution. Kavel resigned his charge in 1835, and early in 1836 called on George Fife Angas (q.v.) in England, hoping that Angas might be able to help the members of his congregation to emigrate to a British colony, where they would be allowed to worship in accordance with their consciences. Eventually Angas advanced the money to enable Kavel and some 200 of his followers to pay their passages to South Australia. They arrived towards the end of 1838, and were the forerunners of the many thousands of Germans who came in later years and proved to be good colonists. The settlement of Klemsig was formed which in a few years became very prosperous. Kavel showed great foresight and shrewdness in supervising the German colonists when early difficulties had to be overcome. In later years he was involved in doctrinal quarrels in his church, became engaged in a law suit, and was compelled by the supreme court to leave his manse. He died on 11 February 1860.
Kavel was a natural leader of men. He helped his followers to adapt themselves to new conditions, encouraged them to become naturalized, and, in assisting them to become prosperous citizens of a new country, had an important influence on the early development of South Australia.
A. Grenfell Price, Founders and Pioneers of South Australia; E. Holder, George Fife Angas.
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KELLY, EDWARD (1854-1880), always known as Ned Kelly,bushranger, |
was born at Wallan, Victoria, in 1854. His father, who had been transported from Ireland to Tasmania, came to Victoria and married a Miss Quinn. Ned Kelly had been associated with Power the bushranger when a boy of 16, but was not apprehended in connexion with him, though he served two or three sentences for horse and cattle stealing before he was 21. In April 1878 he shot a constable in the wrist who was attempting to arrest his younger brother Dan, and the brothers then escaped to the mountains. In October 1878, with two associates Joe Byrne and Steve Hart, they surprised a party of four policemen and shot three of them. The gang was outlawed and rewards eventually increased to ?8000, were offered for their capture; but the country was difficult, and there were many relatives and sympathizers who kept the gang advised of the movements of the police. For a period the bushrangers kept to the ranges, and then descended on the township of Euroa, stuck up the bank, and departed with over ?2000. In February 1879 they appeared at Jerilderie, New South Wales, considerably more than 100 miles from Euroa, took complete possession of the town, and again got away successfully with their plunder. For more than a year the outlaws went into hiding, the police in the meanwhile being largely reinforced. A former associate of the Kellys, Aaron Sherritt, was employed by the police to help them and the outlaws decided to have revenge on him. On 27 June 1880 they went to his house and when Sherritt came to the door he was shot. A special train was then sent to the district with fresh police, but this would have come to disaster, if it had not been for the courage of the local schoolmaster, Thomas Curnow, who held a light behind a red shawl and succeeded in stopping the train. The rails had been torn up near Glenrowan, where the gang was in possession of the hotel a short distance from the station. The police surrounded the building, three of the bushrangers were shot in the house, and the leader then came out, covered with a suit of rough armour and firing at the police. He was eventually shot in the legs and taken to Melbourne to be tried for murder. He was sentenced to death on 29 October 1880 and executed on 11 November.
Ned Kelly was the last of the bushrangers. There have been various attempts to make a hero of him, and it has been suggested that in his early days he was the victim of police persecution. There is, however, no evidence of this. He was unfortunate in his early associations and in belonging to a district where cattle-duffing was looked upon with a lenient eye. He had courage, but little more can be said for him, and his adrnirers have not succeeded in making a convincing case for the shooting of policemen who were trying to do their duty.
F. A. Hare, The Last of the Bushrangers; C. H. Chomley, The True Story of the Kelly Gang; Clive Turnbull, Kellyana.
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KELLY, FREDERICK SEPTIMUS (1881-1916),oarsman and musician, |
son of Thomas Herbert Kelly, woolbroker, was born at 47 Phillip Street, Sydney, on 29 May 1881. He was sent to England and educated at Eton, where he stroked the school eight which won the Ladies Plate at Henley in 1899. He was awarded a musical scholarship at Oxford in this year, and proceeding to Balliol College, became president of the university musical club and a leading spirit at the Sunday evening concerts at Balliol. He was already an excellent pianist. He was also a leading oarsman and, taking up sculling, won the Diamond sculls at Henley in 1902. In 1903 he rowed for Oxford against Cambridge and again won the Diamond sculls. He was a member of the Leander crews which won the grand challenge cup at Henley in 1903, 1904 and 1905. He won the Wingfield sculls and the amateur championship of the Thames in 1903, on the only occasion on which he entered, and in 1905 again won the Diamond sculls; his time on this occasion 8 min. 10 sec. stood as a record for over 30 years. Kelly's last appearance in a racing boat was in 1908, when he was a member of the crew of Leander veterans which won the eights at the Olympic regatta.
After leaving Oxford Kelly studied the piano under Knorr at Frankfurt, and on his return to London acted as an adviser to the Classical Concert Society and used his influence in favour of the recognition of modern composers. In 1911 he visited his people in Sydney and gave some concerts, and in 1912 took part in chamber music concerts in London. On the outbreak of war in 1914 he joined the royal naval division and had distinguished service at Gallipoli, where he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and reached the rank of lieutenant-commander. While serving in France he was killed in action on 13 November 1916.
Kelly was a beautiful sculler, a "master of the art" (R. C. Lehmann, The Complete Oarsman). T. A. Cook, in his Rowing at Henley, speaks of the "perfect action of his wrist and blade". He was an admirable pianist and did some very good work as a composer. At the memorial concert held at the Wigmore Hall, London, on 2 May 1919, some of his pianoforte compositions were played by Leonard Bonwick, and somec of his songs were sung by Muriel Foster; but his "Elegy for Stringed Orchestra", written on Gallipoli in memory of Rupert Brooke, a work of profound feeling, stood out from his other compositions, and made a deep impression. Kelly was only 35 when he was killed, a serious loss to British music.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 June 1881; The Times, 22 November 1916, 3 May 1919; Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, fourth ed.; Licensed Victuallers' Year Book, 1940, p. 280.
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KELLY, MICHAEL (1850-1940),Roman Catholic archbishop of Sydney, |
son of a master mariner, was born at Waterford, Ireland, on 13 February 1850. Educated for the priesthood at St Peter's College, Wexford, and at Rome, he was ordained in 1872. He formed a house of missions in Ireland, to give assistance to the parochial clergy, and during the next 20 years gained a wide experience in parish administration and missionary work. In 1891 he was made vice-rector of the Irish College at Rome, and three years later became rector and head of the college. In this position he frequently met visiting clergy from Australia. In 1901 Cardinal Moran (q.v.) applied for a coadjutor and suggested that Kelly might be given that position. He was consecrated coadjutor-archbishop of Sydney on 20 July 1901, arrived in Australia in the following November, and made his residence at St Benedict's, Sydney. He succeeded Moran on 16 August 1911, and carried on the work of the diocese with great energy. He never allowed politics to interfere with his spiritual duties, though he never ceased to urge the claims of his church for an educational grant. But, however strongly he felt the justice of his claims, he would not allow his non-success in this direction to relax his efforts to have essential things done. If the government would not give them money for their schools they must raise it themselves, and in the 39 years that followed it was estimated that ?12,000,000 was spent in the see on scholastic and church properties. St Mary's cathedral at Sydney, one of the finest Gothic buildings of its time, was completed in 1928, and Kelly's statue stands with Moran's at the main portal. He had been appointed assistant at the Pontifical Throne and count of the Holy Roman Empire in 1926, and after his return from the Eucharistic Congress at Dublin in 1932 the sixtieth anniversary of his ordination as priest was commemorated. Keeping his mind perfectly until the end, he died at Sydney in his ninety-first year on 8 March 1940.
Kelly had a great capacity for work and no obstacle would daunt him. The influence of his natural piety and charity was felt throughout and beyond his own church, and though his beliefs were fervent he would say nothing that could wound the feelings of members of other sects. His material monuments were the churches and schools built in his time, but the atmosphere of good will towards men that he also created was of the greatest value.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 March 1940; The Advocate, Melbourne. 14 March 1940.
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KENDALL, HENRY (1839-1882),poet, |
was born near Ulladulla, New South Wales, on 18 April 1839. He was registered as Thomas Henry Kendall, but never appears to have used his first name. Another name, Clarence, was added in adult life but his three volumes of verse were all published under the name of "Henry Kendall". His father, Basil Kendall, was the son of the Rev. Thomas Kendall who came to Sydney in 1809 and five years later went as a missionary to New Zealand. In 1815 he published at Sydney a Maori primer, A Korao no New Zealand or The New Zealander's First Book, and in 1820 he returned to England where he collaborated with Professor Lee of Cambridge in the preparation of Lee and Kendall's Grammar and Vocabulary of the Language of New Zealand. After returning to New Zealand Thomas Kendall left the missionary society and went with his family to Chile. He returned to Australia in 1826 and received a grant of land at Ulladulla. His son, Basil, remained in South America for about a year and then rejoined his father in Australia. On 1 August 1835 he married Melinda McNally, a granddaughter of Leonard McNally the author of the song "Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill" and of many plays. Their twin sons Basil Edward and Henry were born on 18 April 1839.
Basil Kendall moved to the Clarence district about 1849 but died two years later and his widow took the children to a farm near Woollongong. When Henry Kendall was 15 he went to sea with one of his uncles and was away for about two years. It was probably a trying experience for a lad of Kendall's temperament and physique. Returning to Sydney when 17 years old he found his mother keeping a boarding-school, it was necessary that he should do something to earn a living, and he became a shop-assistant. He had begun to write verses and this brought him in contact with two well-known verse writers of the day, Joseph Sheridan Moore (1828-91) who published a volume of verse, Spring Life Lyrics, in 1864, and James Lionel Michael (q.v.). Michael, who was a solicitor, took Kendall into his office and gave him the run of his library. He removed to Grafton in 1861 and Kendall was again employed by him for about six months during the following year. It was fortunate that Kendall should have been associated with a man of culture and refinement just as he was coming to manhood.
Kendall made another friend in Henry Parkes (q.v.), who was editing The Empire from 1850 to 1857 and published a few of his youthful verses. In 1862 he sent some poems to the London Athenaeum which printed three of them and gave the author kindly praise. In the same year his first volume, Poems and Songs, was published at Sydney. It was well received and eventually the whole edition of 500 copies was sold. Representations were made to the government, and in 1863 a position was found for the poet in the lands department. He was transferred to the colonial secretary's department in 1864 and appears to have discharged his duties in a conscientious way; his hours were not long and he had some leisure for literature. His salary, originally ?150 a year, became increased to ?250 and he was able to make a home for his mother and sisters. But though money went farther in those days, his salary was not sufficient to enable him to save anything. In 1868 he married Charlotte Rutter, the daughter of a Sydney physician, and in the following year resigned from his position in the government service and went to Melbourne, which had become a larger city than Sydney and more of a literary centre. Kendall's decision to give up his position must at the time have seemed very unwise. But he had become financially embarrassed before his marriage on account of the extravagance of his family, and his wife found it impossible to live with his mother who had joined the young couple. The elder Mrs Kendall was in fact practically a dipsomaniac, and the poet felt that the only chance of happiness for himself and his wife was to make a fresh start in another city. He was well received by his fellow writers, George Gordon McCrae (q.v.), Marcus Clarke (q.v.), Gordon (q.v.) and others, but Kendall had none of the qualities of a successful journalist, though some of his work was accepted by the press and George Robertson published his second volume, Leaves from Australian Forests, soon after his arrival. The press notices were favourable, one reviewer in his enthusiasm going so far as to say that "Swinburne, Arnold and Morris are indulgently treated if we allow them an equal measure of poetic feeling with Kendall", but comparatively few copies were sold and the publisher made a loss. The poet found that he could not make a living by literature and, probably by the good offices of George Gordon McCrae, a temporary position was found for him in the government statist's office. Kendall, however, had no head for figures. He did his best but found his tasks hopeless. One day McCrae was called out into the passage to see Kendall, an agitated, trembling figure who told him he must go, he could not stand it any longer. Years later Henry Lawson was to write
"Just as in Southern climes they give
The hard-up rhymer figures!"
Kendall had indeed lost heart; he drifted into drinking and Alexander Sutherland in his essay draws a lurid picture of the depths into which the poet had fallen. It is true that he had the authority of Kendall's poem "On a Street", but years afterwards George Gordon McCrae told the present writer that Kendall "made the worst of everything including himself". McCrae had no doubt about Kendall having at times given way to excessive drinking, but stated positively that he had never actually seen him the worse for drink. McCrae was a good friend to Kendall and he had many other friends in spite of his retiring and sensitive nature. But his friends could not save him from himself, and his two years in Melbourne were among the most miserable of his life. A pathetic letter is still in existence, in which Kendall tells McCrae that he could not go to Gordon's funeral because he was penniless. In 1871 Kendall and his wife returned to Sydney and led an aimless and unhappy existence for some time. In 1873 Kendall was invited to stay with the Fagan brothers, timber merchants near Gosford, and was afterwards given a position in the business of one of the brothers, Michael Fagan, at Camden Haven. There he stayed six years and found again his self respect. Writing in October 1880 to George Gordon McCrae he said, referring to his employer, "I want you to know the bearer. He is the man who led me out of Gethsemane and set me in the sunshine".
In 1880 he published his third volume, Songs from the Mountains. The volume contained a satirical poem on a politician of the day and had to be withdrawn under threat of a libel action. The original edition is now very rare, but the volume, reissued with another poem substituted, sold well and the poet made a profit of about ?80 from it. In 1881 his old friend Sir Henry Parkes had him appointed inspector of state forests at a salary of ?500 a year. But his health, never strong, broke down, he caught a severe chill, developed consumption, and died at Sydney on 1 August 1882, He was buried in Waverley cemetery.
As a poet Kendall was very unequal, and much of his work has little value. He wrote some beautiful sonorous blank verse in "To a Mountain" and "The Glen of Arrawatta" and in "Orara" and other of his nature poems he has at times touches of the magic that belongs to great poetry. He was aware that his work sometimes showed the influence of better poets than himself, but the extent of this has sometimes been overstated. He remains the most considerable Australian poet of the nineteenth century.
Kendall's sensitive and retiring nature has been mentioned and he did not shine in conversation even in congenial company. The strain of melancholy in much of his work was in the man. But he had the gift of making worthy friends all his life. After his death a subscription of ?1200 was made for his widow and family, and positions were found for the three sons. His widow survived him for more than 40 years, and during the last few years of her life received a Commonwealth literary pension. In person Kendall was slight and rather short in stature. His portrait does not appear to have been painted in his lifetime; a posthumous one by Tom Roberts is at the national library, Canberra. No biography of importance has been published although one has been in preparation for some years. On the whole Kendall has been unfortunate in his biographers, most of whom are more or less inaccurate. In 1938 his son, Frederick C. Kendall, found it necessary to publish Henry Kendall, His later years A Refutation of Mrs Hamilton-Grey's book "Kendall Our God-made Chief".
A. G. Stephens, Henry Kendall; Bertram Stevens, introduction, The Poems of Henry Kendall; E. A. Riley, Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. XX, pp. 281-96; Alexander Sutherland, biography, in Turner and Sutherland's The Development of Australian Literature, inaccurate and must be read with caution; P. Serle, A Bibliography of Australasian Poetry and Verse; F. C. Kendall, Henry Kendall, His Later Years; information from George Gordon McCrae. See also J. R. Elder, The Letters and Journals of Samuel Marsden for Kendall's father and grandfather, pp. 415-21. The books on Kendall by Mrs Hamilton-Grey are practically worthless.
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KENNEDY, EDMUND BESLEY COURT (1818-1848),explorer,[ also refer to Edmund KENNEDY page at Project Gutenberg Australia] |
was born in 1818 and was appointed an assistant surveyor of crown lands at Sydney in 1840. He was second in command of Sir T. L. Mitchell's (q.v.) exploration party, which started in December 1845 to endeavour to find a route to the Gulf of Carpentaria. On their return at the end of 1846 Mitchell suggested that Kennedy should be sent to explore the course of the Victoria River. It was also hoped that he might find a convenient route to the head of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Kennedy left Sydney about the middle of March with a party of eight men, and after following the course of the Victoria until it ran into Cooper's Creek, found that the latter ran out into marshes in South Australia. In April 1848 he took charge of another expedition which left Sydney on 29 April 1848 to explore the east side of Queensland from Rockingham Bay to Cape York. The party, which arrived at Rockingham Bay on 21 May, consisted of 13 men, 28 horses, and a flock of sheep. The intention was that it should be met by a vessel at Cape York. Difficulties began at once as it was several days before a way inland could be found, and on 15 July it was decided to abandon the carts and pack everything on the horses. About 10 August the course began to turn definitely to the north but the horses were already in bad condition. By 22 October the stock of flour was reduced to 200 pounds, several of the horses had had to be destroyed, and some of the others were so weak they could carry nothing. On 10 November they were near Weymouth Bay and it was decided that Kennedy and four other men should take seven of the remaining nine horses, proceed to Cape York, and send back help. On their way about three weeks later one of the men accidentally shot himself, another fell ill, and Kennedy and Jackey Jackey, the aboriginal member of the party, pushed on for assistance. Shortly afterwards Kennedy was speared by some aborigines, and died on a day that cannot certainly be fixed between 4 and 13 December 1848. Jackey Jackey buried him, slowly and painfully made his way to Cape York, and found the ship. An endeavour was made to find the three men of the advance party left behind, without success, and the ship then sailed down the coast to Weymouth Bay. It was found that two only had survived out of the eight, William Carron, the botanist, and one of the labourers. The others had died of starvation. In 1849 an effort was made to find the three men of Kennedy's advance party. Jackey Jackey acted as guide and some of Kennedy's papers were recovered. Nothing could be learned of the fate of the three men.
Kennedy was a brave, determined and competent explorer, who attempted what turned out to be a practically impossible task. There is a tablet to his memory in St James' Church, Sydney, which also immortalizes the devotion of Jackey Jackey the aboriginal. Of him it has been well said that in courage, prudence, resourcefulness and loyalty, he could not have been surpassed.
William Carron, Narrative of an Expedition undertaken under the Direction of the late Mr Assistant-Surveyor E. B. Kennedy; R. L. Jack, Northmost Australia, vol. I; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vol. XXVI; T. L. Mitchell, Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia; J. H. Heaton, Australian Dictionary of Dates.
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KENNERLEY, ALFRED (c. 1810-1897),premier of Tasmania, |
was born about the year 1810. He was a man of means who came from England to Australia when young and settled in New South Wales. He removed to Hobart, became an alderman about 1860, and was mayor in 1862, 1863, 1871 and 1872. He was elected to parliament and on 4 August 1873 became premier without office. His ministry initiated a policy of public works, but though there was really little difference between the parties, there was a good deal of political strife, and it was difficult to get anything constructive done. Kennerley became discouraged and resigned on 20 July 1876. This was the only time he was in office, but he was well known for the remainder of his long life as a staunch supporter of the Church of England, and as one of the most philanthropic and high-principled citizens of Hobart. He died in his eighty-eighth year on 15 November 1897. His wife died many years before him and he had no children.
The Mercury, Hobart, 16 November 1897; J. Fenton, A History of Tasmania.
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KENNION, GEORGE WYNDHAM (1845-1922),Anglican bishop of Adelaide, |
son of George Kennion, M.D., and Catherine, daughter of J. F. Fordyce, was born at Harrogate, England, on 5 September 1845. He was educated at Eton and Oriel College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1867 and M.A. in 1871. He was ordained deacon in 1869 and priest in 1870. He was an inspector of schools 1871-3, vicar of St Paul's, Hull, in 1873, and of All Saints, Bradford, in 1876. In 1882 he was chosen by Archbishop Tait to be the second bishop of Adelaide and was consecrated in Westminster Abbey on 30 November 1882. On 5 December he married Henrietta, daughter of Sir Charles Dalrymple Fergusson. Kennion arrived in South Australia early in 1883, and soon realized that more churches were needed in the rapidly-growing suburbs of Adelaide and in outlying country districts. He set to work to fill this need and personally visited all the centres in the colony. During his 12 years in the diocese many churches were built, considerable progress was made in the building of the cathedral, and the number of clergy increased from 50 to 75. In 1894 Lord Rosebery called him to the bishopric of Bath and Wells. There he found no lack of work and ruled the diocese with tact and wisdom. He had some difficulties with the extreme high church movement in the church, but though he allowed much liberty there were limits he would not allow to be passed. He had in early life been associated with the evangelicals, but became a moderate high churchman. He did not take a leading part in ecclesiastical affairs, but was an excellent chairman of the English committee on faith and order. He was lecturer in pastoral theology at Cambridge in 1899, and Ramsden preacher in 1901. He had a serious illness at the end of 1917 and resigned his see in August 1919. He died at Ayr on 19 May 1922.
Kennion was a man of fine physique and great vigour. Though not intellectually brilliant he was a good speaker, moderate and sympathetic in his views of ecclesiastical questions, with a great attraction for those with whom he worked and in particular men and boys. The Kennion Hall at Adelaide grew out of his concern for the welfare of the newsboys, and he preached conciliation in labour disputes, urging on employers that a generous proportion of their profits should be allotted to the men working for them. His great enthusiasm and zeal was helped by his faculty for doing the apt thing at the right time.
The Times, 20 May 1922; The Register, Adelaide, 22 May 1922; The Advertiser, Adelaide, 22 May 1922.
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KERFERD, GEORGE BRISCOE (1831-1889),(The printed D.A.B. had his name listed as 'Kerford'. ebook Editor.)premier of Victoria, |
son of G. B. Kerferd, merchant, was born at Liverpool in 1831. He was educated at the Collegiate Institute, Liverpool, and it was intended that he should study law, but circumstances necessitated his entering his father's business. He came to Melbourne in April 1853, intending to open a branch house of this business, but he found difficulties in doing so, and decided to try his fortunes on the goldfields. He worked for some time in the Bendigo and then in the Ovens districts, before settling at Beechworth as a wine and spirit merchant and brewer. He took much interest in local affairs, was elected a councillor, and on four occasions was mayor. He was elected to the legislative assembly in 1864, began the study of law, and was admitted to the Victorian bar in 1867. In May 1868 he took office in the Sladen (q.v.) ministry as minister for mines, but this government was defeated a few weeks later. In June 1872 he became solicitor-general, and later attorney-general, in the Francis (q.v.) ministry, which was in office for over two years. On the retirement of Francis, Kerferd became premier and attorney-general, and was able to pass a local government act which remained the basis of local self-government for a very long period in Victoria. In the next session, finding himself with a bare majority of one in a test vote on the budget, Kerferd asked for a dissolution, and, on this being refused, resigned. He was again attorney-general in the fourth McCulloch (q.v.) ministry, which was in power from October 1875 to May 1877, and in the first Service (q.v.) ministry from March to August 1880. When after a period of turmoil Service and Berry (q.v.) formed a coalition government in 1883 Kerferd as attorney-general worked with immense industry on a series of valuable bills which were eventually passed. These included a judicative act, the public service act, the railway management act, and the early closing of shops act. Kerferd made a reputation in the house by his reasonableness and honesty when in charge of a bill. He was always willing to accept a really valuable amendment, or consider a reasonable objection. In 1883 he was one of the Victorian representatives at the federal convention, and on 28 December 1885 he resigned to become a supreme court judge. His appointment caused some feeling as there were several barristers available with longer standing. Kerferd, however, had had eight years experience as attorney-general, and had shown great ability in the position. He was denied the usual courtesies extended by the bar to new judges, but his industry, general intelligence and courtesy wore down opposition, and it was agreed that he filled his new position with dignity and distinction. He died after a short illness while on a holiday at Sorrento Victoria, on 31 December 1889. He left a widow, five daughters and three sons. He published in 1871 in collaboration with J. B. Box A Digest of the Cases decided in the Supreme Court of Victoria 1846-1871.
The Argus and The Age, Melbourne, 1 January 1890; H. G. Turner, A History of the Colony of Victoria.
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KERNOT, WILLIAM CHARLES (1845-1909),engineer, |
son of Charles Kernot, chemist, formerly member of the legislative assembly for Geelong, was born at Rochford, Essex, England, on 16 June 1845. He was educated at the National Grammar School, Geelong, and matriculated at the university of Melbourne in 1861. He qualified for the degree of M.A. in 1864 and entered the Victorian mining department in 1865. He also qualified as a civil engineer in 1866, in 1867 joined the water-supply department, and in 1868 was appointed a lecturer in civil engineering at the university of Melbourne. He left the water-supply department in 1875, and during the next three years acted as consulting engineer to Louis Brennan (q.v.) in connexion with his torpedo. In 1882 he became chairman of directors of the first company to introduce electric lighting to Melbourne, and from 1 January 1883 was the first professor of engineering at the university of Melbourne. When he started there was little in the way of either buildings or equipment, but during the following 26 years he worked up a fine engineering school, and was an inspiring teacher and friend to the many students who qualified for engineering degrees during this period. In 1887 he gave ?2000 to the university to found scholarships in natural philosophy and chemistry, and in 1893 gave ?1000 for the fittings for the metallurgical laboratory. Kernot also assisted Francis Ormond (q.v.) in the organization of the workingmen's college, and was president of this institution from 1889 to 1899. He was for several years president of the Royal Society of Victoria and of the Victorian Society of Engineers. He died at Melbourne on 14 March 1909. He never married.
Kernot wrote many papers for technical journals. Of his writings published in book or pamphlet form the most important was On Some Common Errors in Iron Bridge Design, which appeared in 1898. An enlarged second edition was published in 1906. A younger brother, Wilfred Noyce Kernot, born in 1868, was for many years a lecturer at the university of Melbourne, and from 1932 to 1936 was professor of engineering.
Cyclopaedia of Victoria, 1903; The Argus, 15 March 1909; The Age, 15 March 1909; The Melbourne University Calendar, 1942.
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KIDMAN, SIR SIDNEY (1857-1935),pastoralist, |
was born near Adelaide on 9 May 1857. He was educated at private schools at Norwood, and at 13 years of age bought a one-eyed horse for ?2 10s., and set out for New South Wales with only five shillings in his pocket. His father had died when he was only six months old. He obtained work on Mount Gipps station near the site of Broken Hill at ten shillings a week, and two years later went to Poolamacca station at ?1 a week. He saved and bought a bullock team, and opening a butcher's shop and store at the Cobar copper rush, made good profits. When he was 21 he inherited ?400 from his grandfather's estate and traded with it successfully in horses and cattle. He was in his middle twenties when he acquired a one-fourteenth share in the Broken Hill Proprietary mine for 10 bullocks worth about ?4 each. He sold his share for ?150 less ?50 commission and was satisfied with the profit. He had mail contracts on a fairly large scale and in 1886 bought Owen Springs station. Gradually he extended his holdings until they reached out into Queensland and New South Wales. The great drought in 1901 was a disaster to him, but the Bank of New South Wales had faith in him and supported him. Within a year he had made ?40,000 and began buying largely again. He eventually owned or had a large interest in an enormous area of land variously stated to have covered from 85,000 to 107,000 square miles. Before the 1914-18 war he was a millionaire, and during the war he presented a number of armoured planes to the empire and with his wife did much war work. In 1921 he gave his country home, Eringa, near Kapunda, to the education department for a high school, and coming to Adelaide left much of the management of his interests to his son and a son-in-law. In 1925 the yearly amount spent in wages on his stations was ?61,316, on rations ?23,427, and the railage paid to the South Australian railways department cost an additional ?58,581. He made heavy losses in the 1927-30 drought, and again in the Queensland drought which broke in June 1935. Largely on account of this his estate was sworn at only a little more than ?300,000; but Kidman was used to the ups and downs of the pastoral business and had he lived a few more years he would probably have been a millionaire again. He died at Adelaide on 2 September 1935. He married in 1885 Isabel Brown Wright who survived him with a son and three daughters. He was knighted in 1921.
Kidman was tall and good looking, a shrewd bargainer, but always just and considerate to the men of the outback with whom he dealt and to his employees, many of whom spent almost a lifetime with him. He did many individual acts of kindness, was interested in the Salvation Army and kindred institutions, and led a simple unpretentious home life. Late in life he did some horseracing and owned the Fulham Park stud near Adelaide.
The Advertiser, Adelaide, 3 September 1935; The Argus, Melbourne, 3 September 1935; Ion L. Illness, The Cattle King.
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KIDSTON, WILLIAM (1849-1919),premier of Queensland, |
was born at Falkirk, Scotland, on 27 August 1849, the third son of an irondresser. Educated at the local school, Kidston was apprenticed at 13 years of age to an ironmoulder. He afterwards attended a technical school at Alloa and studied chemistry privately. In 1882 he went to Australia with his wife and family, and after working at Sydney went to Rockhampton about 1883 and opened a bookseller's shop. He was a Labour candidate for the legislative assembly at Rockhampton in 1893, but was not elected until three years later. In 1899 he became treasurer and postmaster general in the A. Dawson (q.v.) ministry which, however, lasted only a few days. When the Morgan ministry was formed in September 1903 Kidston was placed in charge of the treasury, and when Morgan became president of the council in 1906 Kidston took his place as premier. He was not afraid of work and took the portfolios of premier, treasurer, chief secretary and vice-president of the executive council, but there were three parties in the house, it was difficult to carry on its business effectively, and in November 1907 he resigned when parliament was dissolved. Kidston had finally broken with Labour and was returned as head of a democratic party. Philp (q.v.) carried on for a little while, but eventually made a coalition with Kidston who in February 1908 again became premier and treasurer. In 1909 his government was responsible for the introduction of a university bill which became law, and the university was founded at the end of the year. In February 1911 partly for health reasons Kidston retired from politics and was appointed a member of the Queensland land court. He retired from this position on completing his seventieth year in August 1919, and died on the following 25 October. His wife had predeceased him and he was survived by three sons.
Kidston was a man of forceful personality. He had a hard beginning, but prosperity modified the extreme democratic views he held when he was first in politics. He was a shrewd and capable treasurer, an excellent fighter, able to say "no" when necessary. In his early days he found public-speaking difficult, but developed into a good and even eloquent speaker. He was a good enemy, he could also be a good friend, and was a successful leader of the house, showing as occasion demanded both tact and determination.
The Brisbane Courier, 27 October 1919; C. A. Bernays, Queensland Politics During Sixty Years; Our First Half-Century, a Review of Queensland Progress.
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KING, JAMES (c. 1800-c. 1860),pioneer,[ also refer to James KING page at Project Gutenberg Australia] |
was born probably about the end of the eighteenth century, left Scotland in 1826 as a free settler possessed of capital, and arrived in Sydney early in 1827. He went into business as a merchant, and in 1828 received a grant of 2000 acres of land at Irrawang in the northern part of the colony, which became his chief interest. In 1831 he discovered some sand near Sydney suitable for glass-making, samples of which were sent to England and found to be of fine quality. In January 1832 he asked that he might be rewarded for his discovery by a grant of 50 acres of land near Sydndy, part of the present site of the university. This was refused, but the English authorities suggested that he should be allowed the sum of ?100 off the price of any land he might purchase from the state. King was much dissatisfied, and six years later was still endeavouring to have his claim better recognized. He had no success though he was able to mention that the Society of Arts in London had awarded him its silver medal, and that he had a fresh claim on account of his having established a pottery in the colony. He was, however, in prosperous circumstances; he stated in his memorial that he had capital "to the amount of not less than ?7000" in addition to valuable landed property in various parts of the colony. He had done much experimenting in vine growing and in making wine, and he continued to do this for many years, producing several varieties of wine of high quality. In 1850 he was awarded gold medals by the Horticultural Society of Sydney for a light sparkling wine and for a white wine, and at the Paris exhibition of 1855 his wines were highly commended and awarded a medal. He left Australia in 1855 on a two years' visit to Europe and in 1857 published privately a pamphlet Australia may be an Extensive Wine-growing Country. He was then in bad health and probably died not very long after, but the date of his death is not known. He left a widow who afterwards married William Roberts of Penrith, who by his will left ?4000 to the university of Sydney for the foundation of scholarships in memory of King. This fund has increased to nearly ?6000 and the James King of Irrawang travelling scholarships, now of ?250 a year for two years, have been of great use to many distinguished scholars of the university.
King was an enterprising man who came to Australia when the value of immigrants with capital first began to be recognized. He was too busy a man to try to develop a glass industry, but he was one of the earliest, if not the earliest, to make pottery. Many men had made wine in Australia before he started to do so, but his attention to the question of quality made his work of great value in the early days of this industry.
J. King, Australia may be an Extensive Winegrowing Country; A. W. Jose, Builders and Pioneers of Australia; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. XVI, XVII, XIX, XX, XXVI; Calendar of the University of Sydney, 1938.
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KING, PHILIP GIDLEY (1758-1808),third governor of New South Wales, |
was born at Launceston, Cornwall, on 23 April 1758, the son of Philip King, draper, and his wife, a daughter of John Galley, attorney-at-law. Educated at Yarmouth, he entered the navy as a midshipman in 1770, and was promoted lieutenant in 1778. In 1783 he was a lieutenant under Phillip (q.v.) on H.M.S. Europe, and in 1787 was second lieutenant on the Sirius and arrived at Port Jackson in January 1788. Almost immediately he was made superintendent and commandant of Norfolk Island, where he arrived with a small party of military and convicts at the beginning of March. Grain and vegetables were sown with success, and gradually other convicts were sent to the Island. In December 1789 he was made lieutenant-governor, but was recalled by Phillip and sent to England in the Supply with dispatches. He arrived in London in December 1790 and was able to give the English authorities particulars of the true state of things in New South Wales and at Norfolk Island. On 2 March 1791 he was promoted to the rank of commander, and returned to Sydney where he arrived in September. Almost immediately he went to Norfolk Island and resumed his governorship. He found much to do as new batches of convicts were constantly arriving, and by October 1792 the population of the island was over a thousand. In December 1795 he was seriously ill and a kindly letter from Governor Hunter (q.v.) to him suggested that he should not try to do so much. He obtained leave to go to England, sailed in October 1796, and arrived in May 1797. He endeavoured to obtain promotion without success, and in October considered resigning his position as lieutenant-governor in the hope of getting some other employment in the navy. In January 1798 it was decided that he should go out to New South Wales with a dormant commission as governor-general "in the case of the death or during the absence of Captain John Hunter". On 16 April 1800 he arrived in Sydney with dispatches advising Hunter that he was to return to England and place the government in King's hands. Hunter did not leave until 28 September 1800.
King was faced with similar difficulties to Hunter's. Macarthur (q.v.) was the leader of the military party and endeavoured to induce his brother officers to boycott the governor. His commanding officer, Colonel Paterson (q.v.), would not agree, so Macarthur involved Paterson in a duel and severely wounded him. King acted with decision and in November 1801 sent Macarthur to England to be tried by court-martial. An immense dispatch was prepared giving full particulars from the governor's point of view, which was found to have disappeared when the vessel bearing it reached England. A reasonable inference is that Macarthur or some associate of his must have been responsible for this and it gave him an immense advantage. No inquiry appears to have been held into the disappearance of the dispatch. King in Australia continued his fight against the traffic in spirits, encouraged explorations, made financial reforms, and refused to allow increases in the price of food. Every effort on one occasion was made to induce him to raise the price of wheat from eight to fifteen shillings a bushel. In 1802 he was able to inform the home government that "the colony has not, nor can have any further occasion for grain or flour being sent from England whatever accidents may happen". It was still necessary however to import salt meat.
The trouble with the military officers persisted, and in a dispatch dated 9 May 1803 King, feeling the strain of the imputations placed on his conduct, asked for leave of absence to enable him to defend himself. (H. R. of A., vol. IV, p. 244.) The dispatch in reply' dated 30 November, treated King's letter as though it were a resignation. He was notified in 1805 that Captain Bligh (q.v.) would be his successor. King's recall was probably due to Macarthur having been able to give his version of the trouble with the officers, while King had no opportunity of saying anything in rebuttal. Bligh did not actually arrive until 6 August 1806. King who had been in ill health for some time left for England on 10 February 1807. He visited his old friend Phillip at Bath in May 1808 and died at Tooting, Surrey, on 3 September. (Gentleman's Magazine, 1808, vol. II, p. 858.) He married in 1790 Anna Josepha Coombes who survived him with a son and three daughters. The son, Phillip Parker King, is noticed separately. Mrs King was afterwards given a pension of ?200 a year.
King like Hunter was a humane man, Banks on one occasion reproved him for too often reprieving offenders. The free settlers appreciated his work, and in 1803 several addresses were presented to him thanking him for his efforts, especially in "suppressing the infamous and ruinous monopolies whereby the industrious settler was prevented from supporting his family". Four of these addresses were signed by a total of over 200 settlers, and must have given some comfort to King in the midst of his manifold worries. The colony during his time slowly began to emerge from the wretched conditions of the early years, and became self-supporting. The beginning of intellectual life was suggested in the issue early in 1803 of the first newspaper, and much exploratory work was done. King showed sound administrative powers both at Norfolk Island and at Sydney, but though a stronger man than Hunter he was not strong enough to cope with the military officers, who were determined to maintain their vested interests.
Burke's Colonial Gentry, vol. I; John Hunter, An Historical Journal, etc.; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. I to VII; Historical Records of N.S.W., vols. II to V; G. Mackaness, Admiral Arthur Phillip; H. V. Evatt, Rum Rebellion; Mrs Marnie Bassett, The Governor's Lady.
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KING, PHILLIP PARKER (1791-1856),rear-admiral and explorer,[ also refer to Phillip Parker KING page at Project Gutenberg Australia] |
was the eldest son of Philip Gidley King (q.v.), third governor of New South Wales, and his wife Anna Josepha, daughter of Mr Coombes of Bedford. He was born at Norfolk Island on 13 December 1791 and was educated in England. He joined the navy in 1807 as a first-class volunteer, showed bravery in actions fought in 1808 and 1809 and in 1810 was master's mate of the Hibernia. He served on various vessels on the Mediterranean station, and in February 1814 was made lieutenant on the Trident. In February 1817 Earl Bathurst informed Macquarie (q.v.) that King had been entrusted to command an expedition to complete the exploration of the coast of Australia begun by Flinders (q.v.). King arrived at Sydney in September, and a cutter, the Mermaid, of about 85 tons was purchased for his use which sailed on 22 December 1817. Course was set to the south-west of Australia, and Cape Leeuwin was rounded on 1 February 1818. Sickness in his crew and the loss of two anchors gave King great anxiety, and all suffered much from the heat. He, however, persevered and succeeded in mapping parts of the coast and reaching as far as the 134th meridian on the north of Australia. He then retraced his course and arrived at Port Jackson on 29 July 1818. Early in the following year he went to Tasmania and surveyed the entrance of Macquarie Harbour, and in May assisted J. Oxley (q.v.) in his discovery of Port Macquarie on the north coast of New South Wales. King then proceeded north and passed Cape York on 25 July. A westerly course was followed to Wessel's Islands and soon afterwards the Liverpool River was discovered and much of the coast was charted to Cape Londonderry, which was reached by 30 September. There was sickness in the crew, and in the following month, finding that he was short of water, King made for Koepang in the island of Timor. There water and fresh provisions were obtained and the return journey begun. Sydney was reached on 12 January 1820. He had succeeded in surveying 540 miles of the northern coast in addition to the 500 he had previously examined. Besides this a running survey of the 900 miles on the east coast between the Percy Isles and Torres Strait had been made and a much safer route had been discovered.
On 14 June King began his third voyage. During the next six months Australia was circumnavigated, though for a great part of the voyage the Mermaid was in a very leaky condition. On 4 December shipwreck was narrowly escaped on a reef off Botany Bay but after sheltering for a few days King arrived at Sydney on 9 December 1820. The Mermaid was found to be in so bad a condition that a new and larger vessel of 170 tons was obtained and re-christened the Bathurst. Sailing on 26 May 1821 north to Torres Strait, the survey of the coast on the north-west of Australia was continued to Cape Latouche Treville. King then finding the wind continually adverse sailed for Mauritius where repairs were made and stores taken in. He then steered for the south-west coast of Australia and surveyed it from Rottnest Island north to Cygnet Bay, which was reached on 19 February 1822, and next day began the return journey to Port Jackson. He arrived on 25 April and found orders waiting recalling him to England. While in England he prepared his Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia, published in 1827 in two volumes. In 1825 he was appointed to the command of the Adventure sloop with instructions to survey the southern coasts of the peninsula of South America. The voyages began in November 1826 and in November 1830 Captain King was paid off, having done excellent work. An account of the South American voyages will be found in Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle by King and Robert Fitzroy published in 1839.
King held land in New South Wales and soon afterwards returned to Australia. He had been nominated to the legislative council in 1829, but on account of his absence his place was filled by his brother-in-law Hannibal Macarthur. King held that at least he should be given the next vacancy, but the governor, Sir Richard Bourke, thought it inadvisable that in a council of only 14 members two should be so closely related. King persisted in his claim until in 1838 Lord Glenelg refused to continue the correspondence. However, King was appointed to the council in 1839, and in the same year was made resident commissioner of the Australian Agricultural Company. In 1851 he was elected to the legislative council as member for Gloucester and Macquarie. He was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral of the blue in 1855, and died on 26 February 1856.
Admiral King was a good officer who in a mere cockle-shell of a ship did some excellent exploring. He was well-educated, a fellow of the Royal Society and of the Linnean Society, and in his later years did useful work as a citizen which earned general respect. The reproductions of his sketches in the volumes describing his voyages suggest that he was an amateur artist of some ability. Two of his water-colours are in the national gallery at Perth. His portrait is at the Mitchell library.
King married when a young man Harriet, daughter of Christopher Lethbridge of Launceston, Cornwall, who survived him with several children, of whom the eldest was Philip Gidley King (1817-1904). He was born at Parramatta on 31 October 1817 and went to England in 1823. In 1826 he accompanied his father on the Adventure and in December 1831 became a midshipman on the Beagle where he met Charles Darwin. He left the navy in 1836 and, after pastoral experience in Victoria, joined the Australian Agricultural Company at Port Stephens, became its manager in 1854, and remained in this service until his death. He was nominated a member of the legislative council of New South Wales in 1880 and died on 5 August 1904.
The Empire, Sydney, 27 February 1856; Gentleman's Magazine, 1856, vol. II; Burke's Colonial Gentry, 1891, vol. I; P. P. King, Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. IX to XI, XIV, XVI, XVIII to XX, XXII, XXIV, XXV; The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 August 1904; Mrs Marnie Bassett, The Governor's Lady.
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KINGSLEY, HENRY (1830-1876),novelist,[ also refer to Henry KINGSLEY page at Project Gutenberg Australia] |
was born at Barnack rectory, Northamptonshire, on 2 January 1830, the youngest brother of Charles Kingsley, novelist and poet. Their father, the Rev. Charles Kingsley the elder, who came of a long line of clergymen and soldiers, married Mary Lucas and in addition to the two well-known novelists, their family included Dr George Kingsley the traveller and writer, and a daughter who also wrote fiction. Henry Kingsley's boyhood was spent at Clovelly and Chelsea, and at the age of 14 he began to attend King's College School, London. He entered Worcester College, Oxford, in March 1850, where he became a good athlete but entirely neglected his studies. An opportune legacy from a relation enabled him to leave Oxford free of debt and pay his passage to Australia, where he arrived in 1853. There is much obscurity about Kingsley's stay in Australia. He worked as a digger, an agricultural labourer, as a stock drover, and he also had a term in the mounted police. For some time he had little or no money and carried his swag from station to station. Mr Philip Russell stated in 1887 that he employed Kingsley at his station Langa-Willi, and that Geoffrey Hamlyn was begun there. Miss Rose Browne the daughter of "Rolf Boldrewood" has stated that it was on her father's suggestion that Kingsley began to write. Mr Russell's story is confirmed by her further statement that her father gave Kingsley a letter to Mr Mitchell of Langa-Willi station, that he stayed with Mitchell, and there wrote Geoffrey Hamlyn. Kingsley returned to England about the end of 1857. His father and mother were now living at a cottage near Eversley, Hampshire, and there they welcomed him on his return. Kingsley took a cottage next door and in these peaceful surroundings finished Geoffrey Halyn, which immediately became popular when it was published in 1859. It was followed by Ravenshoe in 1862, Austin Elliott (1863), and the Hillyars and the Burtons (1865). He married in 1864 Miss S. M. K. Haselwood and during the next 12 years he wrote and published 15 novels and collections of short stories which gradually declined in merit. The public lost interest in them and Kingsley's financial difficulties became constant. In 1869 he was appointed editor of the Daily Review, a paper representing the Free Church party at Edinburgh. He was, however, unfitted for the routine of editorial work, and in the middle of 1870 resigned to go as a war-correspondent at the Franco-Prussian war. On his return he resumed novel-writing which, however, now yielded but little money. In 1873 a legacy lightened the position, but his health was failing and he died of cancer on 24 May 1876. His wife survived him for many years.
The decline in Henry Kingsley's later work led to his real merits being overlooked for a long time. In Australia Geoffrey Hamlyn has always been looked upon as an Australian classic, and the Hillyars and the Burtons, partly set in Australia, is also an excellent piece of work. Ravenshoe may fairly be ranked as one of the best romances of its period. In addition to those already mentioned Kingsley published Leighton Court (1866), Mademoiselle Mathilde (1868), Tales of Old Travel re-narrated (1869), Stretton (1869), The Boy in Grey (1871), Hetty and other Stories (1871), Old Margaret (1871), Hornby Mills and other Stories (1872), Valentine (1872), The Harveys (1872), Oakshott Castle (1873), Reginald Hetherege (1874), Number Seventeen (1875), The Grange Garden (1876), Fireside Studies (Essays) (1876), The Mystery of the Island (1877).
S. M. Ellis, Henry Kingsley; E. Morris Miller, Australian Literature; Desmond Byrne, Australian Writers; H. M. Green, An Outline of Australian Literature.
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KINGSTON, CHARLES CAMERON (1850-1908),statesman, |
was the son of Sir George Strickland Kingston (1807-80), and his wife Ludovina Catherine da Silva, daughter of Lieut.-colonel Charles G. Cameron. Sir George Kingston was born at Cork in 1807, was educated as a surveyor, and having been appointed deputy surveyor-general at the new settlement in South Australia, arrived there in September 1836. He became inspector of public works in 1839 and town surveyor in 1840. He entered the legislative council in 1851 and the house of assembly in 1857, when he became the first speaker. He lost his seat in 1860 but, elected again, was speaker from 1865 to 1880. He was knighted in 1870 and died on 26 November 1880. During his early days in South Australia Kingston's work as a surveyor was much criticized, and does not appear to have been satisfactory (see A. Grenfell Price, The Foundation and Settlement of South Australia). He afterwards, however, became one of the leading public men of his time, and was a dignified and capable speaker of the house of assembly.
Kingston's son, Charles Cameron Kingston, was born at Adelaide on 22 October 1850 and educated at the Adelaide educational institution. He is stated to have been the most brilliant boy that had ever passed through the school. He took up the study of law and was articled to (Sir) Samuel J. Way (q.v.). Admitted to the bar in 1873, he began to practise as a barrister and was especially successful in the criminal court. He became a Q.C. in 1889. In 1881 he was elected a representative of West Adelaide in the house of assembly, was attorney-general in the Colton (q.v.) ministry from June 1884 until June 1885, and introduced and passed the bill bringing in land and income taxes. It has been said of Kingston that by natural instinct he was an aristocrat but by conviction he was a democrat, and his democratic feelings were soon evident in the legislation he sponsored. One of his earliest measures was an employers' liability bill, and he also succeeded in improving the law relating to the estates of married women. He was again attorney-general in Playford's (q.v.) first government from June 1887 to June 1889, and on the protection versus free trade issue successfully fought on the side of protection. An early federalist he represented South Australia with Playford at the federal council held at Hobart in February 1889, and he was again a representative of his colony at the Sydney convention of 1891. In that year he prepared and carried a bill in the South Australian house of assembly for the settlement of industrial disputes by means of boards of conciliation. From January to June 1892 he was chief secretary in Playford's second ministry, and acting premier for the greater part of that period during the premier's absence in India.
From June 1893 to November 1899 Kingston was premier and attorney-general, a record for South Australia. The legislation introduced included the extension of the franchise to women, the establishment of the state bank of South Australia, factory legislation, and the bringing in of the progressive system in connexion with land and income taxes and death duties. In connexion with federation Kingston had been doing important work. At the Sydney convention held in March 1891 he had been a member of the judiciary committee, and of the sub-committee which completed the drafting of the bill to constitute the Commonwealth of Australia. The other members of this subcommittee were Sir Samuel Griffith (q.v.), Barton (q.v.) and Inglis Clark (q.v.) and it has been pointed out that the framing of that bill marks an epoch in the history of federation. "In those few days federation came down from the clouds to the earth; it changed from a dream to a tangible reality." (Quick and Garran; The Federal Movement in Australia, p. 129). At the premiers' conference of January 1895 Kingston and (Sir) George Turner drafted the bill to, be submitted to the parliaments of the various colonies enacting that 10 representatives from each colony were to be chosen by the electors to form a convention, with the duty of framing a constitution to be submitted to the electors. This marked a fresh step on the road to federation. At the convention held at Adelaide in March 1897 Kingston as premier of the colony in which the convention was held was appointed president, and carried out his duties with ability. He was not appointed a member of any of the committees, no doubt it was felt he would have enough to do as president, but he did a good piece of work by supporting Barton when the tussle between the large and small states took place on the question of the powers of the senate with regard to laws imposing taxation. At the close of the subsequent meeting of the Melbourne session of the convention, which lasted from 20 January to 17 March 1898, Kingston expressed his views in no uncertain way. There was still doubt as to what support at the referendum could be expected from Reid, and there was no uniformity of enthusiasm among the other members of the convention. Speaking from the chair at the last sitting Kingston said: "I can but speak for myself alone; but in regard to this constitution, I say unhesitatingly that I accept it gladly. More I welcome it as the most magnificent constitution into which the chosen representatives of a free and enlightened people have ever breathed the life of popular sentiment and national hope. Mine will be no Laodicean advocacy; but with such ability as I may possess, and with the fullest enthusiasm and warmth of which my nature may be capable--with my whole heart and strength--I pledge myself to recommend the adoption of this constitution, daring any danger and delighting in any sacrifice, which may be necessitated by unswerving devotion to the interests of the Commonwealth of Australia."
Kingston visited England at the time of the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897, and was made a privy councillor. At the beginning of 1900 he again went to England and took a leading part with Deakin and Barton in the contest with Chamberlain over the Commonwealth enabling bill. In January 1901 he became minister of trade and customs in the first Commonwealth government. He was elected to represent Adelaide in the following March and was soon immersed in the heavy work of the first session. After six months of preliminary fierce discussion his customs tariff bill was introduced on 18 April 1902, and an even more harassing conflict followed. Reid was leading the free-traders with great ability, and the ranks of labour were divided on this particular question. The burden fell heavily on Kingston who had become used to having a great deal of his own way in South Australia. He found, however, that compromises would have to be made, and the customs tariff act came at last into force in September 1902. Two other bills he brought in had to be abandoned, one dealing with bonuses for manufactures and the other with conciliation and arbitration. The second of these led to a storm. Kingston had incautiously allowed a member of the staff of one of the Melbourne newspapers to see a copy of the bill under a pledge that the information would not be used. The pledge was apparently broken, and Kingston had to admit his mistake. A fortnight later he resigned from the ministry. He wanted the conciliation and arbitration bill to apply to British and foreign shipping engaged in the coastal trade, but Barton would not agree to this partly because he foresaw legal difficulties. He promised to bring in a special navigation and shipping bill which would protect the rights of seamen, but Kingston would not agree to this compromise and left the ministry. He was re-elected for Adelaide at the 1903 election, but gradually took less and less part in the debates. In 1906 he was elected again, without opposition; it was known that he was not fit to fight an election. He continued trying to keep his grip on his work, but his powers gradually declined and he died on 11 May 1908.
Athletic in his youth, Kingston was over six feet in height, in later life weighing about 16 stone, with a big head and high forehead. Mentally he showed a great grasp of essentials; Reid said of him that in spite of his predilection for short cuts he was one of the best parliamentary draughtsmen in Australia. His vigorous, forceful personality brought him much antagonism when in the parliament of South Australia, but he became supreme there, and when he came into federal politics he had so long been in the habit of taking the lead, his colleagues sometimes found him difficult to work with when differences arose. He was a man of great courage and sincerity, his resignation from the Barton ministry showed that he was willing to sacrifice his position for the sake of his convictions. He was a great leader and reformer, a great Australian who spent himself unsparingly for his country.
Kingston married in 1873 Lucy May, daughter of Lawrence McCarthy, who survived him. There were no children. A statue to his memory by Alfred Drury was erected in Victoria square, Adelaide, in 1916.
The Advertiser and The Register, Adelaide, 12 May 1908; The Times, 12 May 1908; F. Johns, A Journalist's Jottings; P. Mennell, The Dictionary of Australasian Biography; Quick and Garran, Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth; H. G. Turner, First Decade of the Australian Commonwealth; R. H. Croll, Tom Roberts; G. H. Reid, My Reminiscences; W. Murdoch, Alfred Deakin.
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KNIBBS, SIR GEORGE HANDLEY (1858-1929),first Commonwealth statistician and first director of the Commonwealth institute of science and industry, |
son of John Handley Knibbs, was born at Sydney on 13 June 1858. He joined the land survey department of New South Wales in 1877, in 1889 resigned to take up private practice as a surveyor, and in 1890 became lecturer in surveying at the university of Sydney. He was elected a member of the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1881, became a member of the council in 1894, from 1896 to 1906 was almost continuously honorary secretary, and in 1898-9 was president. He was also taking an active interest in other societies, and was president of the Institution of Surveyors at Sydney for four years in the period between 1892 and 1901, and president of the New South Wales branch of the British Astronomical Society in 1897-8. He had begun contributing papers to the Royal Society of New South Wales at an early age, at first on matters arising out of surveying, and then on problems of physics. In his presidential address delivered on 3 May 1899 he showed that he had given much time to the study of mathematics. In 1902 and 1903, as a royal commissioner on education, Knibbs travelled through Europe and furnished a valuable report, which led to his being appointed director of technical education for New South Wales in 1905. He was also in this year acting-professor of physics at the university. In 1906 the Commonwealth bureau of census and statistics was created and Knibbs was made its first director.
Before the establishment of the Commonwealth bureau valuable work relating to the statistics of Australia had been done by H. H. Hayter (q.v.) of Victoria, and T. A. Coghlan (q.v.) of New South Wales; but there was need for co-ordination, and beginning on 30 November 1906 a conference of statists from the different states and from New Zealand was held with Knibbs presiding. As a result of the conference it was agreed that the information collected by each state should be made available to the Commonwealth, and that, as far as possible, there should be uniformity of methods. In 1908 Knibbs issued No. 1 of the Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, an invaluable work issued yearly ever since, which has established the highest reputation among publications of its kind. Knibbs was in charge of the bureau for 15 years, but was also employed in other activities. In 1909 he represented Australia at five European congresses which discussed such diverse subjects as life assurance, the nomenclature of diseases, the scientific testing of materials, and statistics. During the 1914-18 war he was on the royal commission dealing with problems of trade and industry, and was a consulting member of the committee on munitions of war. In 1920 he represented Australia at the empire conference of statisticians in London. In March 1921 he was made director of the newly-founded Institute of Science and Industry. At the 1921 meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science he was president of the social and statistical science section, and took as the subject of his address "Statistics in regard to World and Empire development". Two years later he was president of the association and spoke on "Science and its service to man". He resigned his directorship of the Institute of Science and Industry in 1926, and lived in retirement until his death at Camberwell, a suburb of Melbourne, on 30 March 1929. He was created C.M.G. in 1911 and was knighted in 1923. He contributed 29 papers to the Royal Society of New South Wales, and several of his monographs, largely on statistical subjects, were published as pamphlets. In 1913 he published a volume of verse, Voices of the North and Echoes of Hellas, largely translations, carefully written but not important as poetry, and in 1928 appeared a work on population, The Shadow of the World's Future.
Knibbs was a man of wide culture with a thirst for knowledge. He was deeply interested in more than one department of science, but will be remembered chiefly for his work as a statistician. He married in January 1883 Susan Keele, daughter of L. O'D. James, who survived him with three sons and a daughter. One of the sons, S. G. C. Knibbs, lived for some time in the Solomon Islands, and was the author of The Savage Solomons, published in 1929.
The Argus and The Age, 1 April 1929; Journal and Proceedings Royal Society of New South Wales, 1929; Burke's Peerage, etc., 1929; personal knowledge.
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KNIGHT, JOHN GEORGE (c. 1820-1892),architect and administrator, |
was the son of John Knight, a well-known London engineer, and was born probably about the year 1820. He became an engineer and for a time was superintendent of works for his father. He arrived in Australia in 1852, and, almost at once, was given a position in the public works department; but though earning a large salary, Knight did not stay long in this service. On resigning he began to practise as an architect in partnership with a Mr Kemp. A third partner, Peter Kerr, was added to the firm, but Kemp soon afterwards returned to England. Mennell, in his Dictionary of Australasian Biography, states that Knight designed both parliament house and the public library, Melbourne. The second statement is incorrect as J. Reed was the designer of the library building. The original design of parliament house was entrusted to Knight and Kerr, and in 1856 the legislative assembly and legislative council chambers were built. Knight was the senior partner and there seems to have been a tradition that the design was really his. Thirty-five years later the writer of Knight's obituary notice in the South Australian Register who appeared to speak with knowledge said: Parliament house . . . is a monument to Mr Knight's artistic genius and his cleverness in planning its construction". In 1859 Knight with Captain Pasley reported on the estimated cost of completing the building with different kinds of stone, but after the completion of the parliamentary library building in 1860, nothing more was done for 17 years, when Knight had left Victoria. Peter Kerr was then appointed architect and prepared a new design for the west facade, and for the grand hall and vestibule which was adopted.
Knight ceased practising as an architect in or about the year 1860, and in 1861 organized an exhibition held in Melbourne of the Victorian exhibits for the London exhibition of 1862. Knight took these exhibits to London and arranged them most successfully. In 1866 he again arranged an exhibition in Melbourne of articles from Victoria which were sent to Parts for the exhibition of 1867, with Knight as secretary of the Victorian section. About this period he was also appointed a lecturer in civil engineering at the university of Melbourne.
In 1873 Knight entered the service of the South Australian government and became secretary, accountant, architect, and supervisor of works, in the Northern Territory. He was subsequently chief warden of the goldfields, and filled a variety of other positions before becoming stipendiary magistrate, and finally in July 1890, government resident at Palmerston. He died there on 10 January 1892. He was a man of much geniality of temper and great ability, with a special talent for organizing. To a friend who could not understand how a man of his ability could allow himself to be buried so long in a place like Palmerston, Knight replied that he liked the climate and enjoyed the life there. He appears to have been not merely a magistrate and administrator, but an arbitrator in all disputes, and a kind of uncrowned king of the Northern Territory. Possibly like a more famous personage he felt it was better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
The Argus, Melbourne, 12 January 1892; The South Australian Register, 11 January 1892; P. Mennell, The Dictionary of Australasian Biography; A Short History and Description of the Parliament House, Melbourne.
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KNIGHT, JOHN JAMES (1863-1927),journalist, |
was born at Hartley, Staffordshire, England, on 7 June 1863. At the age of 11 he went to New Zealand, and worked as a boy in the mechanical department of the Bruce Herald. Six years later he returned to England and with partners started a paper with trades union sympathies. In 1884 he went to Brisbane and was employed in the printing department of the Brisbane Courier. He soon afterwards was transferred to the literary staff, became the paper's chief parliamentary representative, and in 1900 was made editor of the Observer, an evening paper under the same management as the Courier. In 1906 he was appointed editor of the Courier, in 1916 became managing director of Queensland Newspapers Ltd, and afterwards combined this office with that of chairman of directors for the remainder of his life. In 1918 he represented Queensland on the Imperial mission to the war fronts, and in 1920 visited Canada as a member of the Imperial press delegation. He was chairman of the Queensland section of the Imperial press delegation when a visit was made to Australia in 1925. He died at Brisbane on 24 November 1927. He married at an early age and left a widow and two daughters. Apart from his journalistic work Knight was the author of In the Early Days, an interesting account of the founding of Queensland, was part author of The Story of South Africa, and was also responsible for Brisbane Past and Present and The True War Spirit. He arranged and edited Australian Pioneers and Reminiscences by Nehemiah Bartley which was in an incomplete state at the time of the author's death.
Knight began work at a very early age and had received very little schooling. He began on the lowest rung of the journalistic ladder, and by his early forties was in command of a powerful newspaper which exercised much influence in Queensland. He was a great judge of men, always loyal to his staff, and though impatient of slackness or pretentiousness, could make allowances when a man had failed on account of circumstances beyond his control. He was a convinced Imperialist and though he had been associated with Dawson (q.v.), Fisher (q.v.) and other early Queensland labour leaders in his younger days, he later swung away from them and allied himself with their opponents. But he realized the value of the trades union movement, and never lost his sympathy with labour ideals. As a journalist he was a good fighter, especially if some injustice was involved, and he always fought fearlessly for measures which seemed to be in the best interests of the state.
The Brisbane Courier, 25 November 1927; The Daily Mail, Brisbane, 25 November 1927.
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KNOPWOOD, ROBERT (1761-1838),early clergyman and diarist, |
came of a well-to-do Norfolk family. The statement in the Australian Encyclopaedia that he was born on 2 June 1761 is in agreement with the inscription on his tombstone which says that he died in September 1838 "aged 77 years". The Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, says, however, that his age was 17 when he was admitted on 16 June 1781 (vol. II, p. 105). He graduated B.A. in 1786, M.A. in 1790, and was ordained deacon in 1788 and priest in 1789. Having inherited a fortune as a young man, he became a member of the gambling set associated with the Prince Regent and quickly lost his money. He obtained a position as chaplain in the navy, and was appointed to Colonel Collins's (q.v.) expedition which, after the failure of the Port Phillip settlement, landed on the site of Hobart on 19 February 1804. Knopwood's salary as chaplain to the settlement was ?182 10s. per annum. He was appointed a magistrate on the following 17 March.
Knopwood kept a diary for more than 30 years. It is now in the Mitchell library at Sydney, an interesting first-hand record of early Tasmania. From it we learn of the want of food and other hardships of the pioneers, the troubles with blacks and bushrangers, and the slowly improving conditions. It was a brutal, hard-drinking, hard-swearing age, and Knopwood does not appear to have been in advance of his time. He records dreadful floggings of convicts for comparatively trifling offences without indignation, and probably as a magistrate ordered them himself. On the other hand he interested himself in two boys both under 18 years of age, who had been condemned to death and succeeded in getting them reprieved at the foot of the gallows. He tells us that he took them to a room and prayed with them, and that everyone thanked him for what he had done. He obtained seeds from England and was an early cultivator of wheat, oats, vegetables and fruit. As the population grew Knopwood's work increased, his salary was raised to ?260 per annum in April 1817; but his health was not good and about this time Macquarie (q.v.) was complaining of his dissipation and inability to carry out his duties. In 1821 Knopwood wrote to Macquarie asking that he might retire on full pay on account of his failing eyesight. His resignation was accepted on 7 September 1822, a pension of ?100 per annurn was granted, and Sir Thomas Brisbane (q.v.), who had succeeded Macquarie, was authorized to make Knopwood "such a grant of land as may be considered fair and reasonable". He removed to the east side of the Derwent and died on 18 September 1838. Many years before he had adopted a little orphan girl about a year old of whom he became very fond. Her daughter erected a tombstone in Rokeby churchyard to the memory of Knopwood which describes him as "a steady and affectionate friend, a man of strict integrity and active benevolence, ever ready to relieve the distress and ameliorate the conditions of the afflicted".
Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. V, VII to IX, ser. III, vols. I to VI; Bobby Knopwood and His Times, Ed. by Mabel Hookey.
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KNOX, SIR ADRIAN (1863-1932),chief justice of the high court of Australia, |
was born at Sydney on 27 November 1863. His father, Sir Edward Knox (1820-1901), was born in Denmark of English parents in 1820. Coming to Australia in 1840 he was appointed manager of the Australasian Sugar Company in 1843 which in 1855 became the Colonial Sugar Refining Company. He was associated with this company all his life, and proved himself to be one of the most able organizers in Australia. At the jubilee celebration of the company he referred with pride to the absence of labour troubles during his administration. He was also prominently connected with the Commercial Banking Company, and was for many years a member of the legislative council. He was knighted in 1898, and died on 7 January 1901. His son, Adrian Knox was educated at Sydney, Harrow, and Cambridge, where he graduated LL.B. He was admitted to the inner temple and returned to Sydney in 1886. At Sydney he read with his brother, George Knox, a leading equity barrister of the period, who died soon afterwards. He succeeded to his brother's practice and became a leader at the bar. He stood for the legislative assembly at Woollahra in 1894, and held the seat until 1898 when he retired from politics. Becoming a K.C. in 1906 he was subsequently offered a supreme court judgeship but declined it. He was much interested in racing and won the Sydney Cup with his own horse Vavasor in 1910. He was a member and chairman of the committee of the Australian Jockey Club for some years. During the 1914-18 war Knox gave up his large practice in Sydney to go to Egypt as a commissioner for the Red Cross, where his talent for organization was very valuable. In October 1919 he succeeded Sir Samuel Griffith as chief justice of the high court of Australia, and was most successful in this position. In 1926 he was made a member of the privy council, and subsequently sat as a member of the judicial committee at the hearing of legal questions relating to the powers of the British government to constitute an Irish boundaries commission. He resigned his position as chief justice of the high court at the end of March 1930, having been made the residuary legatee of the estate of his old friend John Brown, which necessitated his taking an interest in the business. This, he felt, could not be compatible with the retention of his judicial office. He died at Sydney on 27 April 1932. He married in 1897 Florence Lawson, who survived him with one son and two daughters. He was created C.M.G. in 1918 and K.C.M.G. in 1921. His elder brother, Edward William Knox (1847-1933), who succeeded his father in the Colonial Sugar Refining Company showed the same admirable business qualities.
Adrian Knox was a great advocate, suave, persuasive, clear, and never labouring his points. He was especially effective in arguing before courts of appeal. His extraordinary quickness of perception, wide knowledge of the world and common sense, united with his fine grasp of law and keen judicial mind, made him eminently fitted for the great position he held as chief justice of the high court.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 January 1907, 28 April 1932, 26 June 1933; The Argus, Melbourne, 1 April 1930.
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KREFFT, JOHANN LUDWIG GERARD (1830-1881),naturalist, |
was born at Brunswick, Germany, on 17 February 1830. He was educated in his native town, and as a youth was much interested in art and wished to study painting. He was, however, placed in a mercantile house and about 1850 emigrated to New York. In 1852 he went to Australia and arrived in Melbourne in November of that year. He worked on the goldfields with success, returned to Melbourne in 1857, and in 1858 was a member of a collecting expedition fitted out by the Victorian government. He was employed for about a year as collector and draftsman for the natural history museum at Melbourne under Professor McCoy (q.v.), and then for a short period as an assistant in the museum. He returned to Germany, but after a short visit went to Australia again and was appointed secretary and assistant to the curator, Dr Pittard, at the Australian museum, Sydney. On the death of Dr Pittard in 1861 Krefft became curator and secretary of the museum. In 1864 he published a Catalogue of Mammalia in the Collection of the Australian Museum, and in 1865, as a pamphlet, Two Papers on the Vertebrata of the Lower Murray and Darling and on the Snakes of Sydney. These papers had been read before the Philosophical Society of New South Wales and, though the title did not show it, a third paper on the "Aborigines of the Lower Murray and Darling" was included in the publication. In 1869 Krefft brought out The Snakes of Australia and in 1871 The Mammals of Australia, both with plates. His Catalogue of the Minerals and Rocks in the Collection of the Australian Museum was published in 1873. He was unhappy in his relations with the trustees of the museum, various charges of neglect of duty were brought against him, and he was dismissed in August 1874. He subsequently brought an action against one of the trustees and obtained a verdict for ?250. The judge held that Krefft was a superior officer under government, and that no one had power to remove him but the governor with the advice of the executive council. Subsequently parliament passed a vote of ?1000 to be applied in satisfaction of Krefft's claims. in 1877 he began the publication of Krefft's Nature in Australia, a popular journal for the discussion of questions of natural history, but it quickly ceased publication. He died on 19 February 1881 (Registrar-General, Sydney). He was a member of many scientific societies, and contributed papers to the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London and other scientific and popular journals. Some of these were printed separately as pamphlets.
J. H. Heaton, Australian Dictionary of Dates; British Museum Catalogue; Annual Reports Australian Museum, 1874, 1875; Nature, 21 April 1881.
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