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DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALIAN BIOGRAPHYAngus and Robertson--1949LMain Page and
Index of Individuals
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LALOR, PETER (1827-1889),leader of the Eureka rebellion and politician, |
was born at Tinakill, Queen's County, Ireland, in 1827 (the date is sometimes given as 1823 but 1827 is more usual, and the notices of his death stated that he was in his sixty-second year on 9 February 1889). His father, Patrick Lalor, was a landed proprietor who sat for some time in the house of commons. Peter Lalor was educated at Carlton College and Trinity College Dublin, became a civil engineer, and emigrated to Australia in 1852. He first worked on the Melbourne-Geelong railway line, then went to the diggings in the Ovens district, and then to Ballarat. In 1852 a licence fee of £1 10s. a month had been imposed on the diggers which caused great dissatisfaction. Parliament consisted of a single chamber, of which one-third of the members were nominated by the crown, the remainder were elected under a much restricted franchise, and the diggers being unrepresented had no means of having their grievances redressed in a constitutional way. In December 1853 the fee was reduced to £1 a month, but the law was administered tyrannically, and even brutally and unjustly. Several incidents excited the indignation of the diggers, who publicly burnt their licences and decided to resist the police and military which had been sent from Melbourne to Ballarat. Lalor was appointed their commander-in-chief. The men began to drill, and the Eureka stockade was built. On the morning of Sunday 3 December 1854 the stockade was stormed by the military, and Lalor was wounded in the shoulder and subsequently had to have an arm amputated. A reward of £200 was offered for information that would lead to his apprehension, but his friends were loyal to him, and he remained in hiding until after several other insurgents had been tried and in every case found not guilty by the jury.
Towards the end of 1855 Lalor began his political career as representative for Ballarat in the old legislative council. Soon after he was appointed an inspector of railways, and held this position until the passing of the "Officials in Parliament Act". In 1856 under the new constitution he was elected to the legislative assembly for South Grant and held this seat until the election of 1871. He was re-elected for this constituency in 1875 and continued to represent it until his death. He was postmaster-general and commissioner of trade and customs in the Berry (q.v.) ministry from August to October 1875, and held the second of these positions in the second Berry ministry from May 1877 to March 1880. He was a capable chairman of committees for several years, and on the retirement of Sir Charles Gavan Duffy (q.v.) in 1880, was elected speaker. In this position he was completely impartial and was one of the best speakers the Victorian parliament has ever had. A severe illness compelled him to resign on 29 September 1887, and parliament voted him a retiring allowance of £4000. He had previously refused a knighthood. He died on 9 February 1889. He married in 1854, Alicia Dunn, who pre-deceased him, and was survived by a son, Dr J. Lalor.
Lalor was six feet in height and broad in proportion. He was always an advocate of the rights of the people, moderate in his views, and never afraid to speak for himself. Twice while minister of customs he had the courage to vote against proposals made by his leader. He was not an outstanding politician either as a private member or as a minister, but he was an authority on constitutional subjects and thoroughly conversant with parliamentary usages. With his fine presence and voice he dominated the house as speaker. "The first duty of a speaker," he said, "is to be a tyrant. Remove him if you like, but while he is in the chair obey him. The speaker is the embodiment of the corporate honour of the house. He is above party." Lalor never allowed scenes to develop and was unrivalled in his management of unruly members.
The Age and The Argus, Melbourne, 11 February 1889; H. G. Turner, Our Own Little Rebellion.
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LAMB, SIR HORACE (1849-1934),mathematician, |
son of John Lamb, was born at Stockport, Cheshire, England, on 27 November 1849. Educated at Stockport Grammar School, Owens College, Manchester, and Trinity College, Cambridge, he was 2nd wrangler and 2nd Smith's prizeman in 1872. He was elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, in the same year, and in 1875 was appointed professor of mathematics in the newly founded university of Adelaide. For the next 10 years the average number of students doing the arts course at Adelaide was fewer than 12, and though Lamb also did some popular lecturing, his work was comparatively light. This gave him time to develop his own subject, and in 1878 appeared his able and original A Treatise on the Mathematical Theory of the Motions of Fluids. From 1881 to 1884 he published a brilliant series of memoirs dealing with the application of harmonic analysis to vibrational problems, and in 1885 he was appointed professor of mathematics at the university of Manchester. He held this position for 35 years, and proved himself to be an inspiring teacher and an excellent administrator. He was known as one of the great mathematicians of his time, and his various treatises firmly established this position. His Hydrodynamics appeared in 1895 (6th ed. 1933), and his other works included An Elementary Course of Infinitesimal Calculus (1897, 3rd ed. 1919), Propagation of Tremors over the Surface of an Elastic Solid (1904), The Dynamical Theory of Sound (1910, 2nd ed. 1925), Statics (1912, 3rd ed. 1928), Dynamics (1914), Higher Mechanics (1920), The Evolution of Mathematical Physics (1924). When Lamb resigned his chair in 1920 he went to live at Cambridge. He died on 4 December 1934. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1884, was twice vice-president, received its Royal medal in 1902 and, its highest honour, the Copley medal in 1924. He was president of the London Mathematical Society 1902-4, president of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, and president of the British Association in 1925. He was knighted in 1931. He married in 1875, Elizabeth Foot of Dublin, who died in 1930. He was survived by three sons and four daughters. The sons were born at Adelaide and all became distinguished. At the time of their father's death, Ernest Horace Lamb was professor of civil and mechanical engineering at East London College, university of London, Walter Rangeley Maitland Lamb, a noted classical scholar, was secretary of the academy of arts, and Henry Lamb was a well-known artist.
The Times, 5 December 1931; Who's Who, 1935; The English Catalogue.
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LAMBERT, GEORGE WASHINGTON THOMAS (1873-1930), the third name was never used,artist, |
was born at St Petersburg, Russia, on 13 September 1873, the fourth child and only son of George Washington Lambert, an American engineer who went to Russia to assist in the construction of railways. His mother was the only child of an English engineer, Thomas Firth, engaged in the same work. The elder Lambert died shortly before his son was born, and some two years later the family removed to Germany and stayed there for six years with Mrs Lambert's father. On their return to England George Lambert was sent to Kingston College in Somerset and made good progress. He began to draw in pencil, and won a prize at South Kensington in an under 12 competition.
Lambert's grandfather Thomas Firth, having now retired, decided to go to Australia with his daughter and her family to join his brother who had been there for some years. When they arrived they went to the brother's station at Eurobla near Nevertire, New South Wales. Here the boy rode and swam and got close to nature, and little attempt was made to continue his schooling. At 13 years of age he went to Sydney and became a junior clerk in the office of Macarthur and Company, wholesale drapers. He was found unsuitable for this work, and a fresh position was obtained as probationer-clerk in the government shipping office, where his surroundings were pleasanter and the hours shorter. In his spare time he did much reading and became fond of music. But he felt the bush calling to him and after five years of office life obtained a situation on a station. He worked hard and at week-ends did much sketching. While on a visit to Sydney he met B. E. Minns (q.v.) and showed him some of his bush sketches. He was advised to see Julian Ashton (q.v.) who was instructor of the Royal Art Society's classes between 1892 and 1896. Lambert received some encouragement and joined the evening classes. He obtained a position at the cash desk in a grocer's shop, began to send black and white sketches to the Sydney Bulletin, and exhibited his first picture at the Royal Art Society's exhibition held in 1894, a small painting of a horse and cart. By 1896 his drawings were being accepted by the Bulletin, and he was able to give up the shop and give full time to his painting. In that year his picture, "A Bush Idyll", was exhibited, and was bought by the Sydney gallery for 20 guineas. He later on spent some time in the country and made studies for "Across the Blacksoil Plains", which was exhibited at the Society of Artists exhibition in 1899 and first brought him prominently before the public. The picture was so large that it could not be conveniently fitted into his studio, and was painted in an outhouse in his mother's garden. Considering the difficulties under which it was painted it was an amazing production, immature no doubt, but strong and full of movement. It was purchased by the national gallery of New South Wales for 100 guineas, and it was also awarded the Wynne prize of £27.
In 1899 the New South Wales government gave the Society of Artists an annual subsidy of £400. A travelling scholarship of £150 a year was established, and the first award was made to Lambert. Three pictures had to be submitted, Lambert's being a subject-picture "Youth and the River", a portrait study of his mother, and a small landscape. He married Amy Absell on 4 September 1900 and two days later sailed for London. By a fortunate chance another distinguished student, Hugh Ramsay (q.v.), joined the vessel at Melbourne. Arrived in London Lambert took a studio at Bayswater while Ramsay visited Scotland, and in a few weeks both artists went to Paris and entered at Colarossi's school. Lambert obtained a studio on the top floor of a factory in the Latin quarter in the same building with Ramsay and James MacDonald who shared a studio. MacDonald was afterwards successively director of the Sydney and Melbourne galleries. Others in the same building were Ambrose Patterson and Frieseke, the well-known American artist. Lambert had a small salary from the Bulletin but found the toll of drawings required hampered his work. He was represented at the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts in 1901 by his "La Guitariste", but his recognition was slower than Ramsay's who had already begun to make a reputation. In June Lambert's son Maurice was born which added to his responsibilities, and he was not finding any buyers in Paris. In November 1901 he returned to London.
The contract to supply the Bulletin with drawings had been given up but much work was done for English magazines. In 1903 a portrait of Miss Thea Proctor was painted and hung at the Royal Academy exhibition. Miss Proctor and his own family afterwards furnished the models for a series of pictures exhibited at the academy, which included "Lotty and the Lady" (1906), now at Melbourne, "The Bathers" (1908), and "Holiday in Essex" (1910). Lambert was interested in the great men of the past and his work at this period was influenced to some extent by Velasquez and Manet. He was working very hard varying his painting with teaching at Brangwyn's London school of art. He exhibited with the International Society and the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts, and in 1911 was awarded a silver medal at the Exposicion Internacional de Arte at Barcelona, for his painting "The Sonnet". He was making a reputation as a portrait painter when the war broke out. He reported himself at Australia House, but was informed that if he wished to join the A.I.F. he should do so through a recruiting office in Australia. Later on, after a period of training, he was appointed a divisional works officer in Wales, and was sent to superintend timber-getting there. He did his work with great efficiency. Towards the end of 1917 he was approached on behalf of the Canadian War Memorials Fund and was offered an artist's commission. He was told that John, Cameron, and Orpen would be his brother artists. It is a tribute to Lambert's reputation that he should have been joined with three such distinguished painters. He had, however, been previously in touch with the Australian authorities, and in December 1917 became one of their war artists. He arrived in Egypt in January 1918 and on 12 February in a letter to his wife he mentioned that he had dispatched 23 drawings and 11 paintings to Australia House. He was to do an enormous amount of work in the next five years, of which some 250 examples are at the war museum at Canberra.
Lambert returned to England in August 1919. He shortly afterwards obtained additional war commissions, and Algernon Talmage R.A. offered him the use of his country house in Cornwall. He completed there "The Beersheeba Charge" and "The Battle of Romani" but he felt he could do the work better in Australia. He sailed about the beginning of 1921 and soon after his arrival in Melbourne had a one man show at the Fine Art Society gallery which was very successful. On 29 June he was officially welcomed by the Society of Artists at Sydney, whose scholarship he had won 20 years before. But he revolted from the well-meant kindness of his friends, it was pleasant to talk but he had work to do. He took up sculpture and began working on a sketch design for the Port Said memorial, and also various portrait commissions in oil. He was disappointed at not winning the competition for the Port Said memorial, but he had contributed to this failure by making a design which admittedly could not be completed for the amount allowed. His disappointment was mitigated to some extent by his obtaining a sculpture commission for the Geelong grammar school war memorial. In 1922 he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy. In 1924 he had a temporary break down in health caused by overwork, he had found it difficult to obtain suitable assistance. For his next important commissions the "Unknown Soldier" and the Henry Lawson memorial he was able to get the help of Arthur Murch, who with George Perugia, a skilled caster, lightened his burdens very much. He was not helped by the well-meant advice of members of the Lawson committee, who however later on expressed their pleasure in the dignity and power of his conception. Under medical advice he was restricting the number of hours worked each day. The Lawson group was finally completed, and on 25 March 1930 it was shown to a gathering of his friends in his studio. Then followed reaction. He went away to the country for rest and change but little improvement followed. On 14 April in writing to his wife he mentioned that he had been "warned off riding and any exercise whatever . . . It was Lawson 'done it'". He died suddenly on 28 May 1930. He was survived by his wife and two sons. The elder, Maurice, born in Paris in 1901, well known as a sculptor, is represented at the Victoria and Albert museum and in the Tate gallery. The younger Constant, a composer and conductor, was in 1938 musical director of the Vic-Wells ballet in London.
Lambert was tall, athletic, a good boxer in his youth, fair, with a reddish beard. He had a slightly theatrical manner and would probably have made a good actor had he chosen that art. When he took part in a pageant which included some professionals, one of them said, "what a Mercutio he would have made!" He was fond of music and had a good light baritone voice. He was sometimes accused of posing but this was only self-protection. In reality he was a highly nervous man who lived only for his art. His paintings sometimes suggest an easy mastery of his materials, but though he could on occasions work quickly nobody could have been more painstaking. Sometimes he would spend the whole of a sitting on painting the hands. The war broke out just as he was coming into prominence in England, otherwise he would have gained greatly in public appreciation, he had already gained the approval of his fellow artists. He could appreciate and rejoice in the work of other artists, and his placing the name of his assistant Arthur Murch with his own on the statue of the unknown soldier, was a gesture that might well be imitated by other sculptors. He ranks among the greatest artists of the Australian school both in painting and sculpture. He is well represented in the Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide galleries, in addition to the war museum at Canberra.
Amy Lambert, Thirty Years of an Artist's Life; A. Jose and others, The Art of George W. Lambert; James MacDonald, The Art and Life of George W. Lambert; personal knowledge.
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LANDSBOROUGH, WILLIAM (c. 1825-1886),explorer,[ also refer to William LANDSBOROUGH page at Project Gutenberg Australia] |
was the third son of the Rev. David Landsborough, naturalist and writer. He was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, about the year 1825, came to Australia when a young man, and took up land in the New England district of New South Wales. The country was unsuitable for sheep and Landsborough was obliged to abandon it and find employment. When gold was discovered in 1851, Landsborough went to the diggings and had some success. He was on the land again in 1853 in Queensland, and in 1856 going farther north found fine pastoral country at the head of the Thomson River. Bad seasons, however, resulted in his losing all his pastoral interests in 1860. He did some exploring, and traced the Gregory and Herbert rivers to their sources, and in August 1861 was placed in charge of an expedition to search for Burke (q.v.) and Wills (q.v.), starting from the Gulf of Carpentaria. His vessel went ashore on the way but was refloated, and on 1 October the party of four whites and four aborigines arrived at the mouth of the Albert River with 25 out of their 30 horses. Landsborough started on 16 November in the direction of Central Mount Stuart, but little water could be found and, deciding to return, he arrived at his depot towards the end of January 1862. On 10 February he started his journey to the south and was fortunate in finding well-grassed country. In the middle of March he was following the Flinders, but finding he was getting too far to the east, struck south to the Barcoo, known lower down as Cooper's Creek. Stores began to run short and had Landsborough known that Howitt (q.v.) had reserve stores at Burke's depot on Cooper's Creek he would have made for it. He decided to go to the south and on 21 May arrived at the Messrs Williams' station about 800 miles north of Melbourne. Obtaining provisions the party set out for the Darling some 200 miles distant, from it they went to Menindie and thence to Melbourne. In the following November Landsborough was presented with a service of plate valued at £500, and subsequently visiting India and Europe the Royal Geographical Society presented him with a gold watch for finding a practicable route from the north to the south of Australia.
After an absence of two years Landsborough returned to Australia and in 1865 became a member of the Queensland legislative council for one session. Towards the end of that year he was appointed police magistrate for the district of Burke. Finding Burketown extremely unhealthy he made Sweers Island his headquarters and from there did much local exploring. In June 1872, he was made inspector of brands for the Moreton district and held this position for the remainder of his life. A few years before his death the Queensland parliament voted him £2000 for his services as an explorer, and with this he purchased a pastoral property at Caloundra where he spent any time he could spare from his duties. He died there on 16 March 1886. He married a daughter of Captain Rennie who died from fever contracted at Burketown.
Landsborough, who was survived by a family of children, was a brave and capable pioneer and explorer. It has been suggested that he gave up his search for Burke and Wills too early, but some members of his party had fallen sick and he was running short of food.
The Brisbane Courier, 17 March 1886; J. H. Heaton, Australian Dictionary of Dates; Ed. by J. S. Laurie, Landsborough's Exploration of Australia; Journal of Landsborough's Expedition; William Howitt, The History of Discovery in Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand, vol. II.
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LANE, WILLIAM (1861-1917),social reformer, |
was born at Bristol, England, on 6 September 1861. His father was Protestant Irish and worked in a nursery, his mother was English. When Lane was born his father was earning a miserable wage, but later on his circumstances improved and he became an employer of labour. The boy was educated at Bristol grammar school and showed ability, but he was sent early to work as an office boy. His mother died when he was 14, and at 16 he went to America and supported himself doing odd jobs. In Canada he became a reporter at the age of 20. He married before he was 21 Annie Macguire and went to Australia soon afterwards. Between 1883 and 1885 he began working on the Brisbane Courier and the Observer, an evening paper with radical tendencies; there was then no Labour party. Lane had much influence in forming the Brisbane Trades and Labour Council, and soon 17 unions were affiliated. His "Labour Notes" in the Observer were read all over Queensland, and he used his column to advocate settling on the land as a remedy for social problems. In 1887 he started the Boomerang and emphasized the necessity for land reform. He created a sensation by persuading the premier Sir Samuel Griffith (q.v.) to write an article for his Christmas Boomerang, which said among other things that the main remedy for social ills was the recognition that the worker was entitled to an adequate and fair proportion of the new wealth produced by his labour. "It appears to follow that it is the duty of the state to undertake the task of insisting upon a fair division of the products of labour between the possessor of the raw material and the producer." Lane at this stage had been much influenced by Henry George, but it was not long before he made the transition to socialism. His form of government had, however, no place for coloured races, and he took a strong stand on the Chinese question, then a subject of agitation. Lane's chief fear was of course the possible introduction of a low standard of living. His paper became a great influence in Queensland, and Lane made many friends, not only in the labour ranks but also among highly placed people who held democratic or socialistic opinions. He was making an income of £600 a year as a journalist at the end of 1889, when the proposal to found a Labour paper was mooted. By March 1890 he had sold the Boomerang and taken a little cottage so that he might be able to live on his salary of three pounds a week as editor of the Worker. Lane wrote a large part of it himself, but among the writers of verse were Henry Lawson (q.v.), Francis Adams (q.v.), and John Farrell (q.v.). The success of the paper was immediate. It was read more and more widely, but Lane was still not content. He assisted in organizing the unionists, he founded debating societies, hundreds of pamphlets were written and distributed, and all the time his remarkable personality was drawing the workers to him so that "he succeeded in establishing the best organized band of workers in Australia".
Long years of strikes and industrial combat followed. By both sides Lane was regarded as the force behind the movement. On the whole he was a restraining influence, though he felt that a time always arrives "where tolerance of a wrong becomes itself a wrong, and where those alone have rights who dare to maintain them". In 1892, under the name of John Miller, he published his novel The Working Man's Paradise, an interesting statement of the socialistic position. But he felt that the movement had reached a stage when the difficulties would tend to increase and progress slow down. For a long time the possibility of founding a socialistic community had been discussed and Lane sent a friend, A. Walker, to South America to investigate the possibility of finding suitable land there. He wanted to prove that socialism was practicable; he had complete faith in his fellow-countrymen, and believed that they could succeed though similar ventures in the past had failed. The New Australia Co-operative Settlement Association was founded to which every male member had to contribute at least £60. Lane himself gave £1000, others contributed up to £1500, and in a short time it possessed a capital of £30,000. It was decided to start in South America rather than in Australia, because there they would be away from capitalistic surroundings, and would be freer to shape their own destinies. The financial depression was causing much unemployment in Australia and it was easy to believe that conditions might be better in some other part of the world. A ship, the Royal Tar, was purchased and fitted up, but there were delays, and it is not unlikely that the seeds of future trouble were sown while the members were waiting in uncomfortable conditions in Sydney. In the face of many difficulties the ship sailed on 17 July 1893.
The Royal Tar arrived at Monte Video on 13 September. There had been a good deal of grumbling and fault-finding on the voyage, but Lane had kept a tight hand on the members and was already being called a despot by some of them. The party transhipped to a smaller vessel and after travelling 1200 miles up the River La Plata they reached the site of New Australia on 4 October. Lane was given the powers of a magistrate by the government of Paraguay. The settlers stated their preference for particular kinds of work, their foremen were elected by ballot, and all set to work making adobe huts, clearing the land, cultivating vegetable gardens, and doing other work necessary in a new settlement. A few were early discouraged and departed, and just before Christmas 1893 a serious storm arose. Three men went for an outing to a neighbouring village and returned drunk. All had agreed to be teetotallers and Lane insisted on the expulsion of the three men for "persistent violation of the clause . . . relating to liquor drinking". Some of their friends stood by the men, but Lane brought Paraguayan soldiers to the settlement and his orders were obeyed. Factions began to spring up, work was neglected, there was a feeling that their leader had been unduly harsh, and there was much bickering and arguing. Another body of settlers arrived in March 1894 under the leadership of Gilbert Casey who soon was the leader of the insurgents. The two men talked the problems over but could not come to a compromise. Lane decided to leave and start a fresh colony, and 45 adults and 12 children went with him. They took with them a proportion of the implements and a few cattle. Those who remained gradually developed individualism, some prospered, and some returned to Australia. Lane and his followers travelled about 20 miles to a river ford called Paso Cosme and camped in tents. An attempt was made to get a further grant of land without success, but eventually some land was purchased. A friend gave them £150, belongings were sold, and the new settlement, started with a capital of £400, was named Cosme after their camping place, though it was some distance away. By working 10 hours a day for six months a clearing was made and planted with maize and beans. Gradually their stores were consumed, and in January 1895 for a fortnight there was no food but beans. Everyone worked without complaint and in complete comradeship.
Lane's brother John said that in spite of the privations it was the happiest time of his life. "There seemed to be absolutely no such thing as complaint, ill-nature or ill-feeling," said Mary Gilmore, afterwards to become famous as an Australian poet. But it was a constant struggle against nature, and it took them all their time to keep the 100 acres that had been cleared free of weeds and forest growths. Slowly the conditions improved. New members joined and others left. In September 1896 Lane went to England and organized a party of between 40 and 50 people, but the English recruits usually found the climate too hot, and the diet too monotonous. Lane had more than one illness and his wife also became ill largely as a result of worry. At the fifth annual meeting of the colony in 1899 he decided not to stand for office, and on 2 August 1899 he left the settlement. He was only 38 years old but his energy was exhausted. He became an honorary member of the community and determined to earn money and pay off the settlement's debts. He also set himself to repay all who had left Cosme and claimed amounts they had originally paid into the funds. He was still doing this at the time of his death. His brother John Lane remained at Cosme until May 1904 when the numbers had fallen from 131 in 1897 to 69, of whom only 33 were adults. That was the end of Cosme as a communist colony.
After leaving Cosme Lane went to England and then to New Zealand, arriving late in 1899. He was appointed editor of the Australian Worker, Sydney, in January, 1900, but resigned in the following May. He had a wife and several children to support, so he went back to New Zealand, and, after a few weeks on the Wellington Post, joined a Conservative paper, the New Zealand Herald, at Auckland as leader writer. In 1906 he was largely instrumental in founding the National Defence League, he also advocated compulsory military training in New Zealand, and he was heart and soul with Britain when the 1914-18 war came. He had been editor of the New Zealand Herald for nearly four years when he died on 26 August 1917. His wife survived him with a son and five daughters. Another son was killed at Gallipoli.
Lane was under medium height, of frail physique, and slightly lame from birth. He was completely altruistic and unselfish, and no man had higher ideals. His idealism, however, was not backed by a strong business sense, there was unnecessary muddling before the first party sailed for South America, and when he was given full authority there was a lack of tact in exercising it. But the cause of the failure lay deeper than that. His enthusiasm could so inspire his followers that they could sell all they had and put it into the common pool, but it could not give them new natures to enable them to bear patiently with one another in spite of hardships, monotony, unsuitable food, and the petty jealousies and rancours that infect people thrown much together without pleasurable distractions. The constant strain injured Lane's health and broke his spirit. What had seemed the most important thing in the world had proved a failure. He tried to put it out of his mind for the rest of his life, but occasionally his early hopes would rise again; in August 1914 he wrote: "We shall root out the slum and the slum conditions. We shall see that no child lacks in a civilization bursting with riches." Personally he retained his old charm and gave freely to all who needed sympathy and kindness, work or money. He was still a delightful talker, but could never be persuaded to speak of his South American experiences, and no one will ever know for certain what were his innermost thoughts during the last 18 years of his life. He was the greatest man in the early days of the Labour movement in Australia, and if his Utopia failed it failed largely for reasons he had no power to control.
Two of Lane's brothers, John and E. H. Lane, were connected with Cosme. Both were alive in 1938, still convinced communists; they had left Cosme in 1904 because they considered that communist ideals were no longer being carried out. E. H. Lane, "Jack Cade", had a long connexion with the Labour party in Australia, always as one of the militants, and in 1939 published Dawn to Dusk Reminiscences of a Rebel.
Lloyd Ross, William Lane and the Australian Labour Movement; Stewart Grahame, Where Socialism Failed; A. St. Ledger, Australian Socialism; C. A. Bernays, Queensland Politics During Sixty Years; The New Zealand Herald, Auckland, 27 August 1917.
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LANG, JOHN (1817-1864),first native-born Australian novelist, |
was born at Parramatta, probably in 1817. He was educated at Sydney College, and is mentioned in the chapter "My School Days" in Rolf Boldrewood's In Bad Company and Other Stories. Lang could hardly, however, have been at the school with T. A. Browne ("Rolf Boldrewood") (q.v.), as Browne was not born until 1826. Lang went to Cambridge in 1838 and after qualifying as a barrister returned to Australia. In 1842 at a public meeting he seconded a motion proposed by W. C. Wentworth (q.v.), that the Crown be petitioned to grant the colony a representative assembly. A few months later he went to India and was successful as a barrister. He became a journalist and in 1845 established a paper, the Mofussilite, at Meerut. He also wrote some novels which appeared serially in the Mofussilite and in Fraser's Magazine. These began to be published in book form in 1853, The Wetherbys and Too Clever by Half appearing in that year, followed by Too Much Alike (1854), The Forger's Wife (1855), Captain Macdonald (1856), Will he Marry Her (1858), The Ex-Wife (1858), My Friend's Wife (1859), The Secret Police (1859), and Botany Bay; or True Stories of the Early Days of Australia (1859). Some of these were very popular and were often reprinted, the twelfth edition of Too Clever by Half appearing in 1878. Botany Bay has been reprinted several times, sometimes under the titles of Clever Criminals, or Remarkable Convicts. Fisher's Ghost reprints 10 of the 13 stories of Botany Bay. Lang also published Geraldine, A Ballad in 1854, and in 1859 Wanderings in India and other Sketches reprinted from Household Words. He visited London in 1859, and was for a short time at Calcutta where he issued the Optimist. He died at Mussoorie, India, on 20 August 1864.
Author's preface to Botany Bay; Rolf Boldrewood, In Bad Company, p. 365; The Dictionary of Indian Biography; Frederic Boase, Modern English Biography; E. Morris Miller, Australian Literature; British Museum Catalogue.
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LANG, JOHN DUNMORE (1799-1878),politician, miscellaneous writer, and early clergyman, |
was born at Greenock, Scotland, on 24 or 25 August 1799, the son of William Lang and his wife, Mary Dunmore. Both sides of the family came of farming stock. He was educated at the parish school and entered Glasgow university while still in his thirteenth year. He graduated M.A. in 1820, in the same year was licensed to preach, and five years later received the degree of D.D. His younger brother had emigrated to Australia in 1821, and his report of the conditions stirred the imagination of the young clergyman who decided to start a Presbyterian church in Australia. On 14 October 1822 he sailed for Australia, paying all his own expenses, arrived at Sydney on 23 May 1823, and very soon after gathered together a congregation and obtained the use of a hall from the government. He also set to work to obtain subscriptions to build a church, and the foundation-stone of Scots Church was laid on 1 July 1824. In August Lang voyaged to England and on his arrival interviewed Earl Bathurst, the secretary of state for the colonies who directed that one-third of the estimated cost of the church should be advanced by the treasury and that Lang should be paid a salary of £300 a year. The church was opened on 16 July 1826, and Lang continued to be its minister until his death more than 50 years later. He was a born fighter, and, having been refused a licence to solemnize marriages, put an advertisement in the Sydney Gazette stating that he would solemnize marriages by banns, and challenged anyone to show that such marriages were against the law. The authorities came to their senses and Lang was given his licence.
In 1830 Lang paid his second visit to England. He had endeavoured before he left to found a Presbyterian high school, but was unable to enlist the sympathies of the governor, Sir Ralph Darling (q.v.). In England Lord Goderich, secretary of state for the colonies, not only agreed to authorize an advance of £3500 for the establishment of the college, but also agreed that £1500 of this sum might be used to convey a party of workmen and their families to Sydney. In 1831 Lang returned to Australia with 140 emigrants, chiefly Scotch mechanics and their families. The understanding was that the cost of their passages would be repaid out of their earnings. On the voyage out Lang married his cousin, Wilhelmina Mackie, at the Cape of Good Hope. The experiment of bringing out the mechanics was a great success, but Lang imprudently raised hostility by writing a letter to Lord Goderich suggesting that the land granted to the Church of England authorities was not being put to its proper use, and that it should be sold and the proceeds devoted to the encouragement of emigration. Several people as a consequence refused their assistance in building his college, and he had to make personal sacrifices including the selling of his home to meet his responsibilities. The school was opened in 1832 under the name of the Australian College. Lang was appointed principal without salary, but the school had a chequered existence until it was closed in 1854. Its scheme was too ambitious for the circumstances of the time, and its rigid sectarianism did not help it to attain complete success.
In 1833 Lang again went to England and during the voyage wrote his An Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales, which was published in London in 1834 and subsequently ran into four editions, the last of which appeared in 1875. He returned to Sydney in 1834 and in the following year started a weekly newspaper the Colonist. Lang was nothing if not outspoken and fought more than one libel action with success, acting as his own advocate. In the same year he opposed the appropriation of the land fund for police and gaol establishments, and powerfully contended that the money should be spent on encouraging immigration. In 1836 and 1839 he again visited England and did valuable work in advocating the sending of suitable colonists to Australia. In 1842 he was in conflict with the synod of the Presbyterian Church in Australia, and was deposed from the ministry, a deposition which was confirmed by the presbytery of Irvine in Scotland. Lang again went to Great Britain and had the Church court decisions rescinded, and returned to Sydney fully accredited as an ordained minister of the Church of Scotland. In 1843 he was elected as a representative for Port Phillip in the newly established legislative council. The Port Phillip district was becoming prosperous, and though it contributed much revenue to the government, the public expenditure was in no way in proportion. Lang became a most active representative and in 1844 brought forward a motion for its separation from New South Wales. In spite of his eloquent speech, his only supporters were the other representatives of Port Phillip and Robert Lowe (q.v.). It took much agitation before separation was finally achieved in 1851. He also with Lowe took a prominent part in the education controversy. He had been strongly opposed to Lord Stanley's Irish National System, but better acquaintance with its working made a convert of him, and he moved the adoption of the report of Lowe's select committee, which had recommended it. The motion was carried but the governor, Sir George Gipps, (q.v.) vetoed it. In 1846 Lang again went to Europe hoping to have emigration to Moreton Bay encouraged. He was full of the idea that there were great possibilities in cotton-growing in Queensland in addition to the production of sugar, and lectured extensively on the subject in England. Excellent cotton has since been grown in Australia, but it has never become a great industry. His work drew much attention to colonization, and he also was able to give evidence against the continuance of transportation. He spoke eloquently against it after his return, and during the agitation in 1849 and 1850 was elected to the council by a large majority over his pro-transportation opponent. When the council met, Lang moved for a select committee to inquire into charges made against him in connexion with his bringing emigrants to Australia under the land order system. He had enemies in the council who took the opportunity to pass a resolution condemning his conduct. Lang announced his intention of resigning, but a largely attended public meeting passed resolutions condemning the action of the council in passing its resolution without going into the evidence, and Lang retained his seat. He retaliated by publishing details of the careers of his opponents, and one of them prosecuted him for criminal libel. He was found guilty, sentenced to four months' imprisonment and fined £100. The amount of the fine was collected by public subscriptions of one shilling each, and at the election of 1851 Lang was elected for Sydney at the head of the poll. He resigned soon afterwards, paid his seventh visit to England, and returning to Australia was elected for a Queensland constituency in 1854 and worked for separation from New South Wales. In 1859 he was elected to the assembly at the head of the poll for West Sydney, and held the seat until 1869 when he retired. In December 1872 the jubilee of his ministry at Scots' church was celebrated, and in 1873 he was elected moderator of the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church in New South Wales. In the same year he made his ninth and last voyage to England, to see the fourth edition of his Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales through the press. He died on 8 August 1878 and was survived by his wife, a son and two daughters. He was given a public funeral. There is a statue of him in Wynyard Square, Sydney.
Dr Lang was over six feet in height, burly, but suggesting great energy. He feared no one and by word and deed made many enemies. He was a masterful man and difficult to work with, but underlying everything was an immense enthusiasm and a passion for action. At times he appeared to be narrow and bigoted, especially in his views on the Roman Catholic Church, but even his own church was not spared if he thought it in the wrong. In controversy his strong feelings led to his being sometimes unjust, but in his private life he was kindly and full of a practising benevolence. He was a fine orator with the fault of spending too much time in the opening up of the subject, but once fully launched his speaking was characterized by great power and earnestness, and the quaintness and humour of his illustrations were often found to be irresistible. In politics he was never in office, but his long career was characterized by a consistent struggle for the establishment of better educational facilities, and the general advancement of the people. His greatest achievement was his immigration work, for which he made voyage after voyage and worked and spoke with immense effect. It is true that in his dealings with the English authorities he was not always tactful or even prudent, but his bringing of artisans of good character to Sydney supplied a real need and had a distinct effect on the development of the colony. His fine intellect was fortified with much reading, and he did an immense amount of literary work. His one volume of verse, Aurora Australis, published in 1826 and reprinted with additions in 1873, is largely religious verse not much better or worse than most work of this kind. In his secular poems he occasionally touches the edge of poetry. His most important book was his Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales, which has valuable qualities, marred too often by personal bias. Among his other works are: View of the Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation, (1834, 2nd ed. enlarged 1877), Transportation and Colonization (1837), New Zealand in 1839 (1839), Religion and Education in America (1840), Cooksland in North-Eastern Australia (1847), Phillipsland (1847), Freedom and Independence for the Golden Lands of Australia (1852), 2nd ed. 1857, Queensland Australia (1861), 2nd ed. 1864, The Coming Event: or Freedom and Independence for the Seven United Provinces of Australia (1870).
A. Mackay, Melbourne Review, October 1878; The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 August 1878; T. Tait, John Dunmore Lang; A. C. Child, Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. XXII, pp. 69, 208, 298; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. XIV to XX, XXIII, XXIV; J. D. Lang, An Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales.
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LAPÉROUSE, JEAN FRANCOIS GALAUP, COMTE DE (1741-1788),explorer,[ also refer to Comte de LAPÉROUSE page at Project Gutenberg Australia] |
was born at Albi, France, on 23 August 1741. His name is usually spelt La Pérouse, but Ernest Scott has pointed out that Lapérouse and later members of his family wrote it as one word. In November 1756 Lapérouse entered the French marine service as a royal cadet, and for the next 30 years served in many ships, fought in many sea actions, and gained a very high reputation as an officer. In 1785 he was selected by Louis XVI to make a voyage of discovery in the South Seas, in charge of two ships of the navy, La Boussole and L'Astrolabe. The king had been much interested in the voyages of Cook (q.v.), and felt that a French expedition might make further discoveries of great importance. Lapérouse had a personal interview with the king and was given elaborate instructions, with, however, power to modify them should that be necessary. The expedition sailed on 1 August 1785, rounded Cape Horn in January 1786, sailed up the Chile coast and visited Easter Island in April, and the Sandwich Islands in May. The two ships then sailed north to Alaska, then down the coast to California, and then almost due west to Macao on the coast of China, which was reached in January 1787. After a visit to the Philippines a course was set north to Formosa, up the coast of China, round the north of Japan and then generally south or south-east to the Navigator Islands. At one of these islands de Langle, the commander of the Astrolabe, and all of his crew who had gone ashore to obtain fresh water, were murdered by natives in December 1787. Twenty others were severely wounded, one of whom Père Receveur, priest and naturalist, died of his injuries at Botany Bay and was buried there. After the massacre the ships sailed to the south-west, and arrived off the east coast of Australia practically at the same time as the First Fleet under Phillip (q.v.). The French ships sailed into Botany Bay on the morning of 26 January 1788. Happy relations were established between the French and English officers, but there is no evidence to show that Lapérouse and Phillip ever met. After a stay of a few weeks the French ships sailed from Botany Bay on 10 March 1788, and nothing more was heard of them for many years. In 1791 two ships under Admiral D'Entrecasteaux were sent to search for tidings of them. Esperance Bay in Western Australia is named after one of these ships, D'Entrecasteaux Channel to the south of Tasmania is named after the admiral. Their search yielded nothing. Other ships afterwards looked for relics of Lapérouse, but it was not until 1826 that Captain Dillon of the St Patrick found European articles on the island of Tucopia. He made inquiries and learned that two ships, evidently those of the Lapérouse expedition, had been wrecked in the Vanikoro cluster of islands, some of the crew had been murdered when they got ashore, others built a boat out of the fragments and sailed away never to be heard of again, a few remained on the island until they died, but there is no information about the fate of the leader.
Lapérouse was a great navigator and a great man, accomplished, humane, and able. He married Louise Eleonora Broudon two years before he sailed on his last voyage. She survived him but there was no child of the marriage. A monument to Lapérouse was erected by Baron de Bougainville at Botany Bay in 1825, and there is a statue in bronze in the Place Lapérouse at Albi.
Sir Ernest Scott, Lapérouse, and Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vol, XIII, pp. 273-88; Sir William Dixson, Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. XXI, pp. 361-90; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vol. I. There are also many works on Lapérouse in French.
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LA TROBE, CHARLES JOSEPH (1801-1875),lieutenant-governor of Victoria, |
was born in London on 20 March 1801. His father, the Rev. C. I. La Trobe, was a Moravian minister who married a Miss Sims of Yorkshire, and their son was originally educated for the ministry. He, however, did much travelling in Europe, possibly as a tutor, and in 1829 published his first travel book, The Alpenstock. This was followed by The Pedestrian (1832), The Rambler in North America (1835), and The Rambler in Mexico (1836). While on the way to America with the young Count de Pourtales, to whom La Trobe appears to have been either a tutor or mentor he met Washington Irving and the three afterwards travelled through America together. La Trobe's account of these travels is mentioned above, Irving's was published under the title A Tour on the Prairies. In this book he gives a revealing description of La Trobe: "Another of my fellow-travellers was Mr L.; an Englishman by birth but descended from a foreign stock, and who had all the buoyancy and accommodating spirit of a native of the Continent. Having rambled over many countries, he had become, to a certain degree, a citizen of the world, easily adapting himself to every change. He was a man of a thousand occupations: a botanist, a geologist, a hunter of beetles and butterflies, a musical amateur, a sketcher of no mean pretensions, in short, a complete virtuoso; added to which, he was a very indefatigable, if not always a very successful, sportsman. Never had a man more irons in the fire; and, consequently, never was a man more busy or more cheerful." After the conclusion of his American journeys La Trobe was in 1837 sent to the West Indies to report to the British government on the future education of the recently emancipated slaves. Apparently this report gave satisfaction, and in February 1839 he received the appointment of superintendent of the Port Phillip district. He proceeded to Sydney, arrived on 26 July, and stayed about two months; as he had had no experience of administrative work it was no doubt thought wise to give him some instruction in the procedure to be followed. He arrived at Melbourne on 1 October and received an enthusiastic reception. His salary was £800 a year, but this was soon raised to £1500. He had brought with him a house in sections, which he erected on the 12½ acres of land on the fringe of the city now called Jolimont. He bought this at auction at the upset price of £20 an acre. The residents of Melbourne had agreed among themselves not to bid against the superintendent, and this reaching the ears of Governor Gipps (q.v.) at Sydney he was somewhat disturbed about it. La Trobe, however, was able to convince him that he had acted quite innocently in the matter.
It is a little difficult to realize the primitive state of Melbourne when La Trobe arrived. Streets were marked out but they were quite unmade, and indeed in some cases were little better than bush tracks with stumps of trees in the middle of them. One of his earliest acts was to set some labourers to work improving these conditions. The population was about 3000 and was rapidly growing, there was no drainage, and health conditions were very bad. La Trobe found it necessary to appoint a board of health to inquire into the causes of the heavy mortality of the town, and following that steps were taken to form a municipal corporation. Everything had to be referred to Sydney, where local affairs often appeared to be more pressing. La Trobe himself had comparatively little power, and in spite of his invariable courtesy he was not long in losing his first popularity. But he had really been doing very good work, for finding that his many requisitions were receiving insufficient attention, he had persuaded Gipps to come to Melbourne in October 1841 and form his own opinion of the position. This had had a good effect, but a movement in favour of separation from New South Wales rapidly developed, and finding La Trobe insufficiently sympathetic, the Melbourne city council in 1848 sent a petition to the Queen praying for his removal from his post as superintendent. This was backed up by a resolution carried at a meeting of 3000 persons. The request was refused, and the colonial office showed its confidence in La Trobe by appointing him lieutenant-governor when separation was at last effected. The influx of population caused by the discovery of gold was the cause of fresh troubles to him, and he had problems of the most difficult character in connexion with the conflicting claims of the squatters and the immigrants. His hesitation concerning the best courses to be followed, led to much abuse of him by the press for which there was little warrant. Early in 1854 the Argus began to insert among its advertisements a notice "Wanted a Governor". La Trobe could stand the strain no longer, resigned his position, and left for England in May 1854. He had been administrator of the government for nearly 15 years, and had shared fully in the dissatisfaction which was the common fate of all early governors. Henceforth he lived a retired life in England. Made a C.B. in 1858, he succeeded in 1864 in obtaining a pension of £333 a year from the British government. He soon afterwards became blind and died at Litlington near Eastbourne on 2 December 1875. He was married twice (1) to Sophie de Mt Mollin who died in 1854 leaving three daughters and a son, and (2) to Susanne de Mauron, who survived him with two daughters. A granddaughter, La Baronne Godefroy de Blonay, presented a valuable collection of his papers to the public library at Melbourne in 1935.
La Trobe was a thoroughly amiable and kindly man, always courteous and conscientious in carrying out his duties. He was well educated and a capable writer, as his travel books show, and an excellent amateur draughtsman. A volume of scholarly verse, The Solace of Song, published anonymously in 1837 and sometimes attributed to him was not, however, his work, having been written by his brother, J. A. La Trobe. His private life was irreproachable, but his administrative work was bitterly criticized during the last few years of his office, and echoes of this will be found in writers on his period up to 30 years after his death. Later historians, however, have been able to realize the extreme difficulty of his position. He could do no more than pass on the sometimes premature demands of the Port Phillip residents, and then carry out his instructions. As a result he too often found himself between the hammer and the anvil. It is possible that he may have deferred too much to Sydney officials, but it is doubtful whether he could have effected much more than he did. He certainly acted with decision in twice preventing the landing of convicts, in 1849 and 1850. Melbourne owes much to him for his part in the founding of the public library, the university, and the Melbourne hospital. He encouraged from the beginning the formation of a reservoir to supply Melbourne with water, and he supported the setting aside of the land for the Botanical, Fitzroy, and other public gardens.
J. H. Heaton, Australian Dictionary of Dates; The Age, 8 April 1939; The Argus, 14 April 1934; A. Sutherland, Victoria and its Metropolis; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. XX to XXVI; Victoria the First Century; H. G. Turner, A History of the Colony of Victoria; G. W. Rusden, The Discovery Survey and Settlement of Port Phillip; H. McCrae. Georgiana's Journal.
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LAWES, WILLIAM GEORGE (1839-1907),missionary, |
was born at Aldermaston Berkshire, England, on 1 July 1839. He was educated at a school connected with the Congregational Church at Mortimer West, and at 14 went to work at Reading. In 1858 the Rev. William Gill came to this town bringing with him a native from the island of Rarotonga. Lawes became much interested in missionary work, and offering himself to the London Missionary Society, was sent to Bedford to pursue his studies. He was ordained at Reading on 8 November 1860. He had been married about a fortnight before to Fanny Wickham, and on 23 November the young couple sailed in the John Williams for Savage Island by way of Australia. Sydney was left on 16 May 1861, and Savage Island was reached about three months later. The natives, once among the fiercest of savages, were now largely Christianized. Lawes soon learned the language and during his stay of 11 years his work was steadily successful. He translated portions of the scriptures into the Niue dialects, which were printed by the New South Wales auxiliary of the Bible Society.
In 1872 he went to Great Britain with his wife on furlough, and did a large amount of travelling and public speaking for the missions. He was sent to the New Guinea mission and in November 1874 a mission station was established at Port Moresby. The people were kindly disposed, but it was soon realized that the desire for teachers and missionaries was largely based on the hope of obtaining beads, tobacco, and food. Lawes philosophically observed that at the dawn of Christianity much better-informed people were no doubt attracted by the loaves and fishes. He went steadily on with his work, but malaria and other diseases took toll of native teachers he had brought with him, and there was little local food available. The coast as far as Milne Bay was explored, and portions of the interior were visited. Lawes began to reduce the local language to writing, and in 1877 published at Sydney Buka Kienana Levaleva Tuahia, a first school book in the language of Port Moresby. In 1885 he brought out Grammar and Vocabulary of Language spoken by Motu Tribe (3rd ed. 1896). From 1877 he was associated with James Chalmers (q.v.), and worked well with him. Chalmers was the more adventurous, Lawes more scholarly, and they made a good combination. When a British protectorate was proclaimed in November 1884, Lawes explained to the chiefs as well as he was able the significance of the ceremony. When he visited Australia in the following year he asked that the natives should be accepted as fellow subjects and fellow men. "Don't talk about them as 'niggers' or 'black fellows' but shake hands with them across the straits!" In 1891 Lawes spent six months in England seeing through the press his translation of the New Testament into Motu, and on his return spent some time travelling through Australia bringing the claims of the mission before the churches. He returned to Port Moresby in April 1893 and at the end of the following year removed to Vatorato, where a training college for teachers was established with Lawes in charge. He was in England when word came of the murder of Chalmers "his bosom friend and beloved brother" as he called him in a remarkable appeal for missions at a meeting held a few days later at the Albert Hall. "Chalmers and Tomkins must be avenged," said Lawes, "not by the burning down of homesteads but as the sainted Tamate would have it, by sending the army of Christian workers to win the tribes for Christ, and make it for ever impossible that such deeds should be perpetrated on their shores."
In 1906, after 44 years of continuous service, Lawes decided to retire. He arrived in Sydney in April 1906 and lived quietly, always interested in Papua as the part of New Guinea under the control of Australia was now called, and frequently preaching at various churches until his death on 6 August 1907. He was survived by his faithful wife and companion in all his labours, and three sons. He was given the honorary degree of D.D. by Glasgow university. In addition to the works mentioned Lawes was responsible for other translations into Motu, including Selections from Old Testament History, a hymn-book, a catechism with marriage and burial services and forms of prayer, and a geography and arithmetic book. The basis of his great success as a missionary was his belief that the work must be a mission of love and understanding. He was an ideal teacher, a skilful organizer, a fit complement of Chalmers. Together they did a great work for New Guinea and civilization. There is a stained glass window in memory of Lawes in Trinity Congregational Church, Reading.
J. King, W. G. Lawes of Savage Island and New Guinea; R. Lovett, James Chalmers, His Autobiography and Letters; The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 August 1907; The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 7 August 1907.
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LAWSON, ABERCROMBIE ANSTRUTHER (c. 1871-1927),botanist, |
fourth son of William Lawson, was born in Fife, Scotland, in or about the year 1871. He went to Glasgow University as a medical student, became interested in botany, and left Glasgow to continue his studies at the university of Berkeley, California. He graduated M.Sc. in 1893, and became an instructor in botany. He was a member of a scientific expedition to the Aleutian Islands, and later made further studies at Stanford and Chicago universities in the United States of America, and at Bonn in Germany. In 1907 he was appointed a lecturer in botany at the university of Glasgow. He carried out his official work there with success, and being allowed some time for research, he worked on the Pollen-mother cells of Coboea and of Gladiolus, which with some earlier work on spindle-formation, led to the "Memoirs on Synapsis, Nuclear Osmosis and Chromosome Reduction", which appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1911-12. In 1912 he was appointed the first professor of botany at the university of Sydney, and there he gradually built up a great botanical school in which both teaching and research were vigorously carried on. His early years in Sydney were of necessity largely given up to the organization of the school, and near the close of his life the details of the new botanical building occupied much of his time. But in between he was able to do valuable research work on the Australian flora. An important contribution to the knowledge of the Gymnosperms, "The Life-History of Bowenia a genus of Cycads endemic in Australasia", was published in 1926 in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Lawson had intended to have gathered together his results in a collective work upon the Coniferales, but he died following an operation on 26 March 1927, at the comparatively early age of 55. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1910 and was also awarded its Makdougall-Brisbane prize. Adelaide gave him the honorary degree of D.Sc. in 1926, and he was a selected candidate for the fellowship of the Royal Society, London, at the time of his death. It was not possible under the statutes of the society to confirm this election.
Lawson was of a somewhat reserved nature but he was personally much liked. Much of his research work was detailed and analytic rather than constructive, but it was excellent within its limits. With his school firmly established and in a beautiful new building, much valuable work might have been expected from him had he been given the normal span of life.
F. O. Bower, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1926-7, p. 374; The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 March 1927; Who's Who, 1926; Nature, vol. CXIX, pp. 509 and 753; Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, ser. A, vol. 117, p. 305; Calendar of the University of Sydney, 1928, p. 857.
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LAWSON, HENRY (1867-1922),short story writer and poet,[ also refer to Henry LAWSON page at Project Gutenberg Australia] |
was born in a tent near Grenfell, New South Wales, on 17 June 1867. His birth is officially registered as Henry Lawson, but his name has sometimes been given as Henry Herzberg Lawson, sometimes as Henry Archibald Lawson. In his books it appears simply as Henry, and his usual practice was to sign his name in that form. His father, Peter Hertzberg Larsen, was a Norwegian sailor, a well-informed and educated man, who had much appreciation of the poetry of the Old Testament, but had no faculty for writing. As it was known that Lawson's father's second name was Hertzberg it has been suggested that Archibald may have been a mistake for Hertzberg made at Henry's christening, but there appears to be no evidence that he was ever baptized. His father, having tried his fortunes on various goldfields, came to Pipeclay, now Eurunderee, New South Wales, and there met Louisa Albury (1848-1920), daughter of Henry Albury, a timber-getter. He married her on 7 July 1866, being then 32 years of age and his wife 18. She was to become a remarkable woman, who, after rearing a family, took a prominent part in the women's movements, and edited a women's paper called Dawn which lasted from May 1888 to July 1905. She published her son's first volume, and about the year 1904 brought out a volume of her own, Dert and Do, a simple story of about 18,000 words. In 1905 she collected and published her own verses, The Lonely Crossing and other Poems, the work in which is of more than average quality. She died on 12 August 1920, a woman of unusual character and ability, who probably exercised a strong influence on her son's literary work in its earliest days. Lawson believed that through his mother he inherited gypsy blood, but there is no evidence for this.
Peter Larsen was working at the diggings near Grenfell when Henry their first child was born, and apparently the family took the name of Lawson when Henry's birth was registered. The family soon returned to Eurunderee where the father took up a selection. The land was poor and little could be done with it, and as Henry grew up, like so many other bush children, he helped in the work; but, as he said in his autobiography, he "had no heart in it; perhaps I realized by instinct that the case was hopeless". Probably the strain of the hard life was partly responsible for his parents' married life becoming unhappy, but in the interview with Mrs Lawson, recorded on the Red Page of the Bulletin on 24 October 1896, she showed herself as a masterful woman with a strong prejudice against men in general, and one feels when reading it that even as a young woman she would probably have been difficult to live with. This is confirmed by private information from a relative of Mrs Lawson still alive at the time of writing. But the unhappiness of the family life re-acted on the child, and in his autobiography at the Mitchell library, Lawson said his home life "was miserably unhappy", and though he goes on to say, "there was no one to blame". the sketch in Triangles of Life, "A Child in the Dark and a Foreign Father", was in all probability founded on his own experience.
In 1876 a little school was opened at Eurunderee and on 2 October 1876 Lawson became a pupil. It was about this time that he began to be deaf, but his master John Tierney was kind and appears to have done his best for the shy sensitive boy. Later on he went to a Roman Catholic school at Mudgee about five miles away. Here again the master, a Mr Kevan, was good to Lawson and would sometimes talk to him about poetry. The boy was steadily reading Dickens and Marryat and such novels as Robbery under Arms and For the Term of his Natural Life, when they appeared as serials. An aunt gave him a volume of stories by Bret Harte which fascinated him and introduced him to a new world. These books no doubt helped to educate him for writing, for handicapped by his deafness he could learn little at school, he was no good at arithmetic, and never learned to spell.
When Henry was about 14 he left school and began working with his father who had got the contract to build a school at Canadian Lead. His childhood was now at an end. He had lived in poor country, where the selectors slaved for a wretched living, and his experiences were to colour the whole of his subsequent literary work. Some time after this his parents agreed to separate, the exact time is uncertain, but in 1884 Mrs Lawson and her family were living in Sydney. The house, however, seems to have been taken in the father's name as he appears in the Sydney Directory for both 1885 and 1886 as Peter Lawson, builder, 138 Phillip Street. Henry worked as a painter and at 17 years of age was earning thirty shillings a week. Though his hours were long he also worked at a night school, and twice entered for public examinations at the university of Sydney without success. He paid for his night-schooling himself, and when about 20 years old went to Melbourne and attended the eye and ear hospital there. But nothing could be done for him and he returned to Sydney. There he worked as a painter at the low wages of the time, saw something of the slums and how the poor lived, and "wished that he could write". He was working as a coach-painter's improver at five shillings a day when in June 1887 the Bulletin printed four lines of a poem he had submitted and advised him to "try again". In October his "Song of the Republic" was published in the Bulletin, and in the Christmas number two poems "Golden Gully" and "The Wreck of the Derry Castle" appeared. Lawson has told us with what excitement he opened this Bulletin and found his poems. Prefixed to the second was an editorial note:--"In publishing the subjoined verses we take pleasure in stating that the writer is a boy of 17 years, a young Australian, who has as yet had an imperfect education and is earning his living under some difficulties as a housepainter, a youth whose poetic genius here speaks eloquently for itself." Lawson was then 20 years of age, not 17, but the editor showed remarkable prescience in recognizing the poet's ability so early. Lawson's first story, "His Father's Mate", was published in the Bulletin for 22 December 1888 greatly to the pride of his father, who, however, died a few days later aged 54. Lawson in his autobiography said of him: "I don't believe that a kinder man in trouble, or a gentler nurse in sickness ever breathed. I've known him to work hard all day and then sit up all night by a neighbour's sick child." Though Lawson may have inherited his capacity for writing from his mother, he probably owed the love of humanity that illumines all his work to his father.
Lawson went to Albany, Western Australia, in 1889, but found conditions no better there, and was in Sydney again for most of 1890. He then obtained a position on the Brisbane Boomerang at £2 a week, but the paper stopped about six months later, and Lawson was back in Sydney again working at his trade for the usual low wages, writing a good deal for the socialistic press, as a rule without pay, and getting an occasional guinea from the Bulletin and smaller sums from Truth. In 1892 he did some writing for the Sydney Worker at twelve and sixpence a column, and about the end of that year went by train to western New South Wales and carried his swag for six months doing odd jobs. Much of his experience of this period was afterwards included in his writings. Towards the end of 1893 Lawson landed in Wellington, New Zealand, with one pound in his pocket, worked in a sawmill for a short period, and tried his hand at a variety of tasks. He then found his way to Sydney again hoping to get work on the Daily Worker, which, however, had stopped publication before he arrived. In 1894 his Short Stories in Prose and Verse was published by his mother, a poorly-printed little volume of 96 pages, which was favourably received but brought in little money. He had made a life-long friend in J. Le Gay Brereton (q.v.), who had been introduced to him by Mary Gilmore, and other friends of his early literary days were Victor Daley (q.v.), E. J. Brady, and F. J. Broomfield. In April 1896, while In the Days When the World was Wide was in the press, he married Bertha Marie Louise Bredt, and soon afterwards took her to Western Australia. In August While the Billy Boils, a collection of his short stories mostly from the Bulletin, was published, and when Lawson returned to Sydney from Western Australia shortly afterwards, he found that both of his books had been cordially received by the critics and were selling well. He next went to New Zealand, where he and his wife were for a time in charge of a Maori school. There he met Bland Holt (q.v.) the well-known actor, who suggested that he should write a play. The play was written though Lawson had no knowledge of the technique of play-writing. Holt gave him an advance against it, and took it away hoping he might knock it into shape, but nothing more was heard of it. In January 1899 an article by Lawson appeared in the Bulletin which stated that in 12 years he estimated that he had made a total of about £700 by his writings. This included the receipts from his first three books. He had returned to Sydney and made a new friend in the governor of New South Wales, Earl Beauchamp, who gave him the financial help that enabled him to go to England with his wife and two young children. They sailed from Sydney on 20 April 1900. In the same year his Verses Popular and Humorous, and a collection of prose stories On the Track and Over the Sliprails, were both published at Sydney.
Though it was not easy for either Lawson or his wife to fit themselves into the conventional pattern of the England of 1900, for a time everything went well. Blackwood and Sons took two books of prose for publication, The Country I Came From and Joe Wilson and his Mates, both of which appeared in 1901. Methuen and Company also took a book made up of prose and verse, Children of the Bush, which was published in 1902. Lawson stuck closely to his work at first, but for some time drink had been a temptation to him, and he began to have trouble with it again. His wife had a serious illness, both found the long winter months very trying, and both pined for the sunshine of Australia. They were glad to return to a little cottage at Manly before the end of 1902. But difficulties arose between husband and wife and they agreed to part. An account of their association, written by Mrs Lawson without rancour and with understanding of Lawson's temperament, will be found in Henry Lawson by his Mates.
At 35 years of age most of Lawson's best work was done. When I was King and other Verses was published in 1905, The Rising of the Court and other Sketches in Prose and Verse, and The Skyline Riders and other Verses in 1910, Triangles of Life and Other Stories, and For Australia and other Poems in 1913. My Army, O, My Army! was published in 1915, and reissued in England under the title of Song of the Dardanelles and other Verses in 1916. Various minor works, reprints, selections, and collected editions will be found listed in Miller's Australian Literature and Serle's Bibliography of Australasian Poetry and Verse. Lawson lived mostly in Sydney, but had a happy holiday in 1910 with his friend, T. D. Mutch, at the home of another friend, E. J. Brady, at Mallacoota, Victoria, and in 1917 Bertram Stevens (q.v.) and other friends arranged a deputation to the premier, W. A. Holman (q.v.), which resulted in Lawson being given a position at Leeton on the Yanco irrigation settlement. Lawson described it as the driest place he had ever been to, but his health improved very much while he was there. On his return to Sydney he reverted to his old habits, and became a rather pathetic though lovable figure in the streets of Sydney. He was only a shadow of his former self when he died on 2 September 1922. He was survived by his wife, a son and a daughter. He had a small allowance from his publishers and a small literary pension. That he did not lack friends may be gathered from the volume Henry Lawson by his Mates published nine years after his death. He was given a state funeral. A portrait by Longstaff (q.v.) is at the national gallery, Sydney, and there is a monument by Lambert (q.v.) in Hyde Park, Sydney, erected by public subscription.
Lawson was tall, spare, good looking in his youth, with remarkable eyes. He was shy, diffident and very sensitive, with great powers of attracting friends to him. A convinced socialist as a young man, he was always passionately concerned about the under dog. There has been much discussion about his place as a poet, and opinions have ranged between those of people who consider him to be no more than a mere verse-writer, and those who speak of him as "Australia's greatest poet". The truth lies between these extremes. No one can surely deny the title of poet to the author of "The Sliprails and the Spur", "Past Carin'", passages in "The Star of Australasia", "The Drover's Sweetheart" and that pathetic little poem of his later days "Scots of the Riverina". But a large proportion of his poetry is merely good popular verse. However, every writer is justified in being judged by his best work, and in virtue of his best work Lawson is a poet. There is no difficulty about his position as a prose-writer. His short stories are practically all based on his own experience, and that a proportion of them are gloomy should give no surprise to anyone familiar with the struggling lives of the men on the land in Lawson's youth. He had had little education, and no doubt his earliest efforts were sub-edited to some extent by Archibald and others. But fundamentally he was an artist, and his absolute sincerity and sympathy with his fellows counted for much. He had a quiet sense of humour, his pathos came straight from the heart, his gift of narration is unfailing. The combination of these qualities has given him the foremost place in Australian literature as a writer of short stories.
"Henry Lawson's Early Days", The Lone Hand, March 1908; The Bulletin, 21 January 1899, Geo. G. Reeve, Windsor and Richmond Gazette, 4 December 1931; Peter J. Lawson, ibid, 5 October 1928; Ed. by G. Mackaness, introduction to A Selection from the Prose Works of Henry Lawson, 1930; Henry Lawson, by his Mates; J. Le Gay Brereton, Knocking Round; E. Morris Miller, Australian Literature; H. M. Green, An Outline of Australian Literature; T. S. Browning, Henry Lawson Memories; D. McKee Wright, preface, Selected Poems of Henry Lawson; A. G. Stephens, Art in Australia, third series, No. 2; F. J. Broomfield, Henry Lawson and His Critics; Bertha Lawson, My Henry Lawson; private information.
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LAWSON, WILLIAM (1774-1850),explorer,[ also refer to William LAWSON page at Project Gutenberg Australia] |
was born in 1774 and came to Sydney, an ensign in the New South Wales Corps, in 1800. He was stationed at Norfolk Island between 1802 and 1805, was promoted to lieutenant in 1807, and at the time of the deposition of Bligh (q.v.) was made aide-de-camp to Major George Johnston (q.v.). He was sent to England at the time of Johnston's court-martial, but was soon allowed to return to Sydney and take up his military duties again. In May 1813 with G. Blaxland (q.v.) and W. Wentworth (q.v.) he shared in the discovery of a way across the Blue Mountains, a remarkable feat at the time, which had great consequences. Lawson was rewarded with a grant of 1000 acres of land, and he subsequently became one of the largest holders of land in Australia. He was made a magistrate and was appointed commandant at Newcastle, and in 1819 took up the same position at Bathurst. He did some exploring in 1821 and was the first to pass over the site of Mudgee. In 1835, he was then living at Prospect, he was in the list of persons proposed for selection as nominee members of the legislative council, but was not one of those selected. He was, however, one of the first elected members of the legislative council in 1843, and held his seat until 1848. He died at Prospect on 16 June 1850. He married and left descendants. There appears to be no evidence of importance for the suggestion that has been made, that Lawson was the real leader of the expedition across the mountains.
Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. III, VI, VIII, X, XI, XIII, XVIII, XXIII, XXIV; Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vols. XIX, p. 35, XXIII, p. 28, XXIV, pp. 246, 478; G. Blaxland, A Journal of a Tour of Discovery.
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LEA, ARTHUR MILLS (1868-1932),entomologist, |
was born at Sydney on 10 August 1868. He worked first for a firm of chartered accountants at Sydney but, having taken up entomology as a hobby, he joined the department of agriculture, New South Wales, in 1892 as assistant entomologist, and in 1895 was appointed government entomologist of Western Australia. In 1899 he transferred to a similar position in Tasmania, and did useful research work in connexion with the insect pests of fruit. He joined the South Australian museum as entomologist in 1911, and during his 21 years at the museum made his department a most important one. It was in a relatively poor condition when he took it over, but it was built up until there were more than 1,000,000 specimens in its cabinets. He lectured on forest entomology to students of the university of Adelaide, and on a variety of subjects to societies and scientific bodies. Inquiries from other states were frequently referred to him. He carried out an extensive investigation into insect pests in 1918-19 when the wheat stored in Australia on account of the war was being destroyed by weevils, and in 1924 spent a year in Queensland, Thursday Island, and the East Indies, studying methods of controlling the coconut moth, which was threatening the copra industry in Fiji. He found that a Trachinid fly was controlling a similar pest in Malaya and Java, which was brought to Fiji with successful results. Lea encouraged private workers in his field, and conducted a large correspondence dealing with specimens submitted, and inquiries made by farmers. In addition he was a prolific writer of papers, no fewer than 43 of these were printed in the Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia. He specialized on the Coleoptera, and his papers on them were a valuable contribution to the knowledge of the order. Several of these were published by the Entomological Society of London, and some of his work was printed in Sweden, Germany and Belgium. He gave much time to describing new species of insects, and at the time of his death had described nearly 5500. He died suddenly at Adelaide on 29 February 1932 leaving a widow and three daughters. He was a fellow of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, of the Royal Society of South Australia, of the Entomological Society of London, and was also a member of several other scientific societies.
Lea was a thoroughly amiable man of the finest character, and an untiring worker. A bibliography of his papers listing 281 items will be found in Records of the South Australian Museum, vol. IV, No. 4. These alone are a remarkable record as the work of one man. But apart from his papers Lea did most valuable practical work in relation to the control of pests both in Tasmania and South Australia.
H. M. Hale, Obituary and Bibliography of A. M. Lea; Records of the South Australian Museum, vol. IV, No. 4, 1932; Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, vol. LVI, p. 1; F. Erasmus Wilson, The Victorian Naturalist, May 1932, p. 15; The Advertiser, Adelaide, 1 March 1932; The Entomologists' Monthly Magazine, vol. LXVIII, p. 119; A. Musgrave, Bibliography of Australian Entomology (includes over 230 papers by Lea); The Australian Museum Magazine, 16 April 1932, p. 342.
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LEACH, JOHN ALBERT (1870-1929),ornithologist, |
son of W. Leach, was born at Ballarat on 19 March 1870. He was educated at the Creswick grammar school and the university of Melbourne, where he graduated B.Sc. and subsequently gained his doctorate for research in ornithology. Joining the education department he was a teacher for some time at schools in Gippsland where he began his study of bird life. He became an inspector of schools and towards the end of his life was assistant chief inspector of primary schools. He published in 1911 An Australian Bird Book, a most useful handbook with many illustrations in colour. This went into a seventh revised and enlarged edition in 1929. In 1922 he brought out Australian Nature Studies, a book which has been of the greatest use to organizers of nature study throughout Australia. He was also part author of a series of Federal Geography books, and did much work on the Official Checklist of the Birds of Australia second and revised edition published by the Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union in September 1926. He was editor of the Emu for many years and also published a few pamphlets on nature study. He had two books in preparation on Australian natural history when he died at Melbourne on 3 October 1929. He married Emily Lamert Gillman, who survived him with a son and two daughters.
Leach was hard-working and conscientious, was a leading authority on Australian ornithology, and had great influence on the spread of nature study in Australia through his books and as a broadcaster.
R. H. Croll and Brooke Nicholls, The Emu, vol. XXIX, pp. 230-3; The Education Gazette, 22 October 1929, p. 262; The Argus and The Age, Melbourne, 4 October 1929.
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LEAKE, GEORGE (1856-1902),premier of Western Australia, |
a member of a well-known Western Australian family, was born at Perth in 1856. His grandfather, George Leake, came to Perth with the pioneers in 1829, and was chairman of directors of the Bank of Western Australia when it was founded in 1837. His uncle Sir Luke Samuel Leake (1828-86), became a member of the legislative council and was its speaker from 1870 until 1886, and his father, George Wall Leake (1826-95), also had a distinguished career. He became crown solicitor in 1860, acting attorney-general and a member of the executive and legislative councils, 1879-80, and police magistrate in 1881. On occasions he was acting puisne judge and acting chief justice. He was nominated to the new legislative council in 1890 and died in 1895. George Leake was educated at the Bishop's boys' school at Perth and at St Peter's College, Adelaide. He studied law, was admitted to the Western Australian bar in 1880, and three years later became crown solicitor. He was elected unopposed for Roebourne as a member of the legislative assembly in 1890 and was offered a position in the ministry formed by Forrest (q.v.). Leake, however, declined this and shortly afterwards resigned his seat. In June 1894 he was elected for Albany and in the following year was elected leader of the opposition. He was a leader in the federal movement, was president of the federal league of Western Australia, and represented that colony at the 1897 federal convention. He became a Q.C. in 1898. In 1900 he resigned his seat and paid a visit to Europe. After his return he was elected a member of the legislative assembly in April 1901, and on 27 May became premier and attorney-general. He was defeated in November but the succeeding ministry lasted only four weeks and Leake again became premier. In the following June he contracted pneumonia and died while still a comparatively young man on 24 June 1902. He married in 1881 the eldest daughter of Sir A. P. Burt (q.v.), who survived him with sons and daughters. The Times, 26 June 1902, announced that it had been the king's intention to confer the order of C.M.G. on the late Hon. George Leake.
Leake in his youth was a good cricketer and sportsman, and later became chairman of the committee of the Western Australian Turf Club. He was immensely popular as a politician and showed good debating powers. He ranked high among the men of his time, but his early death put an end to what would probably have been a very distinguished career.
P. Mennell, The Dictionary of Australasian Biography; Who's Who, 1902; H, Colebatch, A Story of a Hundred Years, p. 458; The West Australian, 25 and 27 June 1902; The Times, 26 June 1902.
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LEDGER, CHARLES (1818-1906),noted for his work in connexion with quinine, |
was born at London on 4 March 1818. After leaving school he went to South America and in 1836 was a clerk in a British merchant's office at Lima. He became an expert in alpaca wool, and in 1842 began business as a dealer in South American products. In 1847 he was grazing sheep and cattle half-way between Tacna and La Paz, and in 1852 went to Sydney to inquire into the possibility of introducing the alpaca into Australia. He returned to South America and by 1859 had brought several hundred alpacas to Sydney. This was a hazardous and difficult business as the export of alpacas was forbidden. Ledger was paid £15,000 for his alpacas and given a position in charge of them. The attempt to acclimatize them in Australia was a failure, but Ledger was not to blame for this. He returned to South America in 1863 and turned his attention to another problem. The cinchona tree, the bark of which yields quinine, grew in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, but no one was allowed to export either trees or seeds. The trees were being wastefully cut down without being replaced, and there was some danger that they might become extinct. Some seeds and plants had been introduced into Europe and Asia by Weddell in 1848, and Sir Clements R. Markham. went later to Peru, and Bolivia, and succeeded in acclimatizing trees in Asia and the Dutch East Indies. Ledger, however, found a better variety, now known as Cinchona Callsaya Ledgeriana, and in 1865 under great difficulties collected several pounds of seed. For his share in this work Ledger's servant, an Indian named Manuel, was arrested in Bolivia and so severely beaten that he died. The seed was sent to London where some of it was purchased by the Dutch government. Seeds were also sent to India and Queensland but the trees do not appear to have been grown in Australia. In 1883 Ledger went to Sydney again and in 1884 took a farm some 20 Miles from Goulburn. Losing his savings in the bank failures of the early 1890s, efforts were made by Sir Clements Markham and others to obtain some provision for Ledger from the Indian and Dutch governments. This was at first refused, but in 1897 on Ledger's seventy-ninth birthday, he received news that the Dutch government had granted him an annuity of £100 a year. He died nine years after in 1906.
Ledger did a great service to the world, as millions of cinchona trees grown in India and Java sprang originally from his seeds. By 1900 two-thirds of the world's supply of quinine came from Java, and over 40 years later the Ledger types of cinchona were still the best quinine yielders (Harper's Magazine, August 1943, p. 278).
A. C. Wootton, Chronicles of Pharmacy, vol. II; The Chemist and Druggist, 23 March, 6 April, 27 July 1895; Nature, 12 July 1941, p. 43; Chamber's Encyclopaedia under Cinchona; Norman Taylor, Cinchona in Java; The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 and 13 May 1859.
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LEEPER, ALEXANDER (1848-1934),educationist, |
son of the Rev. Alexander Leeper, canon of St Patrick's cathedral Dublin, was born on 3 June 1848. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated B.A. in 1871 an M.A. in 1875, and Oxford university where he took a first class in classics in 1874. He came to Victoria in 1875 as classical master for the Melbourne Church of England grammar school but in the following year was made principal of Trinity College at the university of Melbourne. The title of his office was afterwards changed to warden. He was not completely successful from the beginning, at one stage there was a revolt which ended in the expulsion of several students, but it became recognized that Leeper was devoted to the college, which he controlled with success for the remainder of his 42 years of office. He also took an important share in the management of the university as a member of the council from 1880 to 1887 and 1900 to 1923. He resigned his position as warden of Trinity in 1918, but continued to be a prominent figure in Melbourne for many years longer as a member of the council of education, as a lay canon of St Paul's cathedral, and as a trustee of the public library, museums and national gallery of Victoria of which he was president from 1920 to 1928. He was also a leading spirit in the Shakespeare Society and the Classical Association. He was a great fighter on the North of Ireland side in all controversies relating to Irish questions. He died at Melbourne on 6 August 1934. An excellent portrait by John Longstaff (q.v.) is in the national gallery at Melbourne.
Leeper was a man of strong personality and force of character, who did valuable work. He was a sound classical scholar, but beyond some lectures and pamphlets his only publication was his translation of Thirteen Satires of Juvenal, originally prepared in conjunction with H. A. Strong (q.v.) in 1882, but afterwards revised and issued under his own name. Trinity College, Dublin, gave him the degree of LL.D. The first Latin play and the first Greek tragedy to be performed in Australia were produced under his direction at Trinity College, Melbourne. Five of his students became bishops in the Anglican Church, J. Stretch and G. M. Long (q.v.) (Newcastle), R. Stephen (Hobart), T. H. Armstrong (Wangaratta) and W. C. Sadlier (Nelson, N.Z.). He was married twice (1) to Adeline Marian, daughter of Sir George Wigram Allen and (2) to Mary Elizabeth, daughter of F. G. Moule, who survived him with three sons and four daughters. Two of the sons had distinguished careers. The elder, Alexander Wigram Allen Leeper (1887-1935), born at Melbourne, educated at Melbourne grammar school, the university of Melbourne and at Oxford, eventually entered the British Foreign Office and rose to be first secretary at H.M. legation at Vienna 1924-8, and counsellor 1933. He broke down under the strain of his work in 1934 and died in January 1935. He had nearly completed A History of Medieval Austria which was published by the Oxford University Press in 1941. His next brother, Reginald Wildig Allen Leeper, born at Sydney in 1888, and educated at Melbourne grammar school and the universities of Melbourne and Oxford, also entered the foreign office and diplomatic service. He was first secretary at Warsaw, 1923-4; Riga, 1924; Constantinople, 1925; Warsaw, 1927-9; counsellor, 1933; C.M.G., 1936; assistant under-secretary, 1940; ambassador at the court of the King of the Hellenes, 1943; K.C.M.G. 1945; ambassador to Argentine Republic, 1946.
The Argus and The Age, Melbourne, 6 August 1934; Sir Ernest Scott, History of the University of Melbourne; E. La T. Armstrong and R. D. Boys, Book of the Public Library, 1906-31; Who's Who in Australia, 1933; Who's Who, 1934, 1947; personal knowledge.
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LEES, HARRINGTON CLARE (1870-1929),Anglican archbishop of Melbourne, |
eldest son of William Lees, J.P., Ashton-under-Lyne, England, and his wife, Emma, daughter of William Clare, M.D., was born on 17 March 1870. He was educated at the Leys School and St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. with a second class in the theological tripos in 1892, and M.A. in 1896. He was ordained deacon in 1893, priest in 1894, and was a curate at Reading, chaplain at Turin and curate at Childwall, until in 1900 he became vicar of St John's, Kenilworth. Seven years later he became vicar of Christ Church, Beckenham, and in 1919 vicar of Swansea. In this year he was offered the bishopric of Bendigo but refused it. In August 1921 he was appointed archbishop of Melbourne, was consecrated at St Paul's cathedral, London, on 14 August 1921, and enthroned at St Paul's, Melbourne, on 15 February 1922.
Lees soon showed himself to be a vigorous worker and a good preacher. He was at Melbourne for less than seven years before he died, but his episcopate was marked by the undertaking of the completion of St Paul's cathedral, and by a great increase in the social work of the church; more especially in connexion with the various homes conducted by the mission of St James and St John, and the Church of England free kindergartens. He visited England in 1928 and died suddenly at Melbourne on 10 January 1929. He married (1) Winifred May, daughter of the Rev. J. M. Cranswick, and (2) Joanna Mary, daughter of Herbert Linnell. He had no children. His published works include: St Paul's Epistles to Thessalonica (1905), The Work of Witness and the Promise of Power (1908), The Joy of Bible Study (1909), The King's Highway (1910), St Paul and his Converts (1910), third impression (1916), Christ and his Slaves (1911), The Sunshine of the Good News (1912), The Divine Master in Home Life (1915) The Practice of the Love of Christ (1915), The Eyes of his Glory (1916), St Paul's Friends (1917), The Love that Ceases to Calculate (1918), God's Garden and Ours (1918), Failure and Recovery (1919), The Starting Place of Victory (1919). He was also a contributor to Hasting's A Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels. His portrait by Longstaff (q.v.) is in the chapter house at Melbourne.
Lees never spared himself and overwork was a contributing cause of his comparatively early death. He had bright personality and was much like by everyone, whether in an industrial parish like Swansea or as archbishop of Melbourne. At synod he was an excellent chairman, speaking little himself, but giving his rulings with decision. In the evangelistic tradition of the diocese, he belonged to no party and his ability, humanity and broad outlook, made him an excellent leader of his church.
The Argus, Melbourne, 11 and 14 January 1929; The Age, 11 January 1929; The Church of England Messenger, 25 January 1929; Crockford 1929; English Catalogue; Year-Books of the Diocese of Melbourne, 1922-9.
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LEE-STEERE, SIR JAMES GEORGE (1830-1903),speaker legislative assembly, Western Australia, |
was born at Ockley, Surrey, England, on 4 July 1830. His father was a leading resident and landed proprietor in the county. After being educated at Clapham grammar school, Lee-Steere became a midshipman in the merchant service and was at sea for 15 years. His last position was commander of the Devonshire, well-known East Indiaman. Early in 1860 he emigrated to Western Australia and leased 100,000 acres of land in the southern part of the colony. In 1867 he was one of the first elected members of the legislative council, won his seat again in 1870, and was then chosen leader of the elected members. In 1880 he lost his seat by one vote but almost immediately became a nominee member. He was made a member of the executive council in 1884 and two years later was elected speaker. In 1890 he was elected a member of the legislative assembly under responsible government and was unanimously elected speaker. He held this position for the remainder of his life. He represented Western Australia at the federal conventions of 1891 and 1897, and was a member of the constitutional committee on each occasion. He died at Perth on 1 December 1903. He married in 1859 Catherine Anne Leake who survived him with a large family of sons and daughters. He was knighted in 1888, and created K.C.M.G. in 1900.
Lee-Steere was an able, upright and hardworking member of the community. A good constitutional authority and an able speaker he was held in great respect by all parties in the house and by the public generally.
The West Australian, 1 and 2 December 1903; Who's Who, 1903; Quick and Garran, The Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth.
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LEFROY, SIR HENRY BRUCE (1854-1930),premier of Western Australia, |
was born at Perth on 24 March 1854. His father, Anthony O'Grady Lefroy, C.M.G., born in 1818, was secretary to Governor Fitzgerald from 1849 to 1853, and colonial treasurer of Western Australia from 1856 to 1890 when he retired. He sent his son to Rugby, where he excelled both in his classes and in athletics, becoming a member of the football fifteen. He declined a university career and returned to his father's station at Walebing, about 100 miles north of Perth, of which he soon became the manager. He was invited to join the Victoria Plains road board, was elected chairman when he was 21 and held the position for 20 years. He entered the legislative assembly in 1892 as member for Moore, in May 1897 became minister of education in Forrest's (q.v.) ministry, and about a year later exchanged this position for that of minister for mines. On Forrest's resigning in 1901 Lefroy became agent-general for Western Australia at London until 1904. Returning to Australia Lefroy devoted himself to his pastoral interests for six years. In 1911 he was elected to the legislative assembly for his old constituency, and was minister for lands and agriculture in the second Wilson (q.v.) ministry from July 1916 to June 1917. He then became premier still retaining his old portfolios. He resigned on 17 April 1919 and was a private member until 1924. His last years were spent in retirement at Walebing where he died on 19 March 1930. He was married twice (1) to Rose Wittenoom and (2) to Madeleine Walford, who survived him with three sons by the first marriage and two sons and a daughter by the second. Lefroy was created C.M.G. in 1903 and K.C.M.G. in 1919. He was a kindly, honourable man, belonging to the best type of squatter, always doing his duty as he understood it, and much loved and respected in his district and in parliament.
J. S. Battye, The Cyclopedia of Western Australia; The West Australian, 22 March 1930; Who's Who, 1930.
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LEGGE, WILLIAM VINCENT (1840-1918),ornithologist, |
son of Robert Vincent Legge, was born at Cullenswood. Tasmania, on 2 September 1840. He was taken to England when a child and educated at Bath, in France and Germany, and at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. In 1862 he obtained a commission in the royal artillery, and, after serving five years in England, was stationed with the British forces at Melbourne. In 1868 he was transferred to Ceylon where he formed a large collection of birds and re-organized the museum at Colombo. In 1877 he returned to England and prepared his A History of the Birds of Ceylon, issued in three parts between 1878 and 1880. This admirable work of over 1200 pages with 34 plates in colour and some woodcuts became the standard book on the subject and has not since been superseded. In 1883 Legge was offered and accepted the command of the Tasmanian military forces, and retired from the British army with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. His appointment terminated in June 1890, but in 1898 he was again offered this position and held it until 1902. During this period he re-organized the forces and obtained new artillery for the defence of the Derwent. He had contributed a "Systematic List of the Tasmanian Birds" to the Royal Society of Tasmania in 1886 and revised this for the 1900-1 volume of its Papers and Proceedings. He was president of the biology section of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science at the meeting held in New Zealand in 1904, and gave a valuable paper on "The Zoogeographical relations of the Ornis of the various subregions of the 'Australian region', with the Geographical distribution of the principal Genera therein". He died at Cullenswood, Tasmania on 25 March 1918. He was twice married (1) in 1877 to Mrs Alex. Thompson and (2) to Miss Douglas. Two sons of the first marriage survived him. He was a Fellow of the Linnean and Zoological Societies, a member of the British Ornithologists Union, and was first president of the Royal Australian Ornithological Union. His first contribution to the Ibis was a letter published in 1866, and various papers were printed during the eighteen seventies. A list of papers contributed to the Royal Society of Tasmania will be found at page 142 of its Papers and Proceedings for 1918. This list, however, omits his revised list of the birds of Tasmania which will be found on pages 90 to 101 of the Papers and Proceedings for 1900-1. A part of his collection of Ceylonese birds was presented by him to the natural history museum at South Kensington, and the remainder was given to the museum at Hobart.
The Ibis, October 1918, p. 721; The Emu, 1918, p. 77; The Mercury, Hobart, 27 March 1918; Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, 1918, p. 142.
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LEICHHARDT, FRIEDRICH WILHELM LUDWIG (1813-1848),explorer, always known as Ludwig Leichhardt,[ also refer to Ludwig LEICHHARDT page at Project Gutenberg Australia] |
was born at Trebatsch, Prussia, on 23 October 1813. His father, Christian Hieronymus Matthias Leichhardt, was an inspector of peat-cutters, who also worked his own small farm. The boy showed ability at school and special efforts were made to send him to the university of Gottingen. He met there an Englishman, John Nicholson, who introduced him to his brother, William Nicholson. They became great friends and afterwards worked together at the university of Berlin, where, it has generally been stated, Leichhardt graduated as a doctor. This, however, has been questioned by A. H. Chisholm (Strange New World, pp. 73-4). Leichhardt went to London in 1837, stayed for some months with William Nicholson at Clifton, was then in London for a period, and in July 1838 went to Paris with Nicholson. During the next three years he lived at his friend's expense in France, Switzerland and Italy. In October 1840 he was due for military service in Germany, but did not attend and thus became a military deserter. Nicholson and he then decided to go to Australia where a brother of the Nicholsons was already established. William Nicholson, however, changed his mind, but paid Leichhardt's passage and gave him £200 with which to start in the new country. He sailed on 1 October 1841 and arrived at Sydney on 14 February 1842, carrying with him a letter of introduction to the surveyor-general, Sir T. L. Mitchell (q.v.).
When Leichhardt presented his credentials he suggested that he would like to do exploring work. As he was quite inexperienced Mitchell gave him no encouragement. Leichhardt then applied for the position of superintendent of the botanical gardens, again without success. He then had the good fortune to meet Lieutenant R. Lynd who was interested in science and invited Leichhardt to live with him. Leichhardt gave lectures on botany and geology but nothing more came of this. His talent for making friendships was again shown when A. W. Scott, a wealthy pastoralist, invited him to come to the Newcastle district and stay with him. Two months later Leichhardt went to Glendon station some 50 miles away where Helenus Scott, who was afterwards to become the father of Rose Scott (q.v.), was his host. During these visits Leichhardt did much botanizing but showed no talent as a bushman, he seemed in fact to have little sense of direction. Yet in January 1843 he made a remarkable journey by himself. He went from Glendon in northern New South Wales to Moreton Bay, Queensland, by a route 600 miles long with practically no equipment; he was afraid of nothing and succeeded in coming to the end of his journey without disaster. At Moreton Bay he found a German mission to the aborigines, and at once took the opportunity of becoming familiar with the natives of the country he hoped to explore. He collected specimens which were sent to his friend, Lieutenant Lynd, at Sydney, and made many excursions into the country, one of them taking him as far as Wide Bay 100 miles to the north. He was thinking of returning to Sydney when he met Thomas Archer (q.v.), a young pioneer who had a run in the Moreton Bay district. He stayed with Archer and his brothers for some weeks and learned they were not satisfied with their country. Leichhardt agreed to look out for land that was more suitable. There was talk of a government expedition to Port Essington on the north coast of Australia, but it was vetoed on a question of cost and Leichhardt became fired with the thought that it might be possible to arrange a private expedition. He went back to Newcastle and then to Sydney where he was warmly welcomed by Lieutenant Lynd. With some assistance from friends he organized an expedition which left Sydney on 13 August 1844. At Brisbane some additions were made to the party which then consisted of Leichhardt, James Calvert, who came to Australia with him in the same ship, and six other men of whom two were aborigines. P. Hodgson, a young squatter, and John Gilbert (q.v.), one of Gould's (q.v.), collectors, joined the party later. Jimbour station on the Darling Downs was left on 1 October, and about a month later Hodgson and another man were sent back as it was feared that the provisions might prove insufficient for the whole party. For a long period a course was set generally in a north-westerly or northerly direction, and towards the end of June 1845 when approaching the Gulf of Carpentaria a turn was made more to the south-west. On 28 June the party was attacked by aborigines at night, Gilbert was killed outright and two others were wounded. In every way this was a great misfortune, for Gilbert, the ablest naturalist and best bushman of the party, also had the best understanding of the aborigines. After burying Gilbert, though the two wounded men were in much pain, the party started again two days later and on 5 July reached salt water. Leichhardt was then able to record that he had discovered a road from the eastern coast of Australia to the Gulf of Carpentaria, with water all the way in country available for pastoral purposes. After a long and weary march round the Gulf of Carpentaria, Port Essington was reached on 17 December 1845. After resting for about a month, the members of the expedition returned to Sydney on the Heroine by way of Torres Strait. They arrived on 25 March 1846 and were given an enthusiastic welcome. The account given by Sturt (q.v.) of his recent journey to the interior had caused much disappointment, and Leichhardt's story of the good land he had found led to great rejoicing. A public subscription raised £1520, to which the government added £1000. of this Leichhardt's own share amounted to £1454, and he then prepared for the press his Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia from Moreton Bay to Port Essington. This was published at London in 1847.
Leichhardt now decided to try to cross the continent from Brisbane to Perth and started from Jimbour station on 7 December 1846. This expedition was mismanaged from the beginning and was insufficiently equipped with food and medicine. The course followed that of the previous expedition for some distance and soon everything began to go wrong. Heavy rain set in and nearly every member of the party suffered from malarial fever. On 22 June 1847, at about the point from which the explorer had decided to strike to the west, the hopelessness of the position became apparent and the expedition turned back. Chauvel's station was reached on 23 July, and soon after the party broke up. Leichhardt returned to Sydney a few months later and towards the end of 1847 learned that he had been awarded gold medals by the Geographical Societies of London and Paris, and that he had been pardoned by the German government for his evasion of military service. He started on his last journey in February 1848. The intention was to find a way across the continent to Perth, and the party consisted of seven men including two aborigines. It appears to have been ill equipped and with insufficient food, as Leichhardt believed they would be able to live on the country to a great extent. In April they passed through Macpherson's station and after that were never heard of again. H. Hely and A. C. Gregory (q.v.) headed expeditions sent especially to search for the lost explorer, but no trace of him has ever been found except possibly a marked tree near the Barcoo River.
Leichhardt was tall, slight and thin featured. He must have had great personal charm for wherever he went he made friends who believed in him, and cared for him. But he cannot rank as a really great explorer, because he was not an inspiring leader and lacked foresight and caution. Two men, Daniel Bunce and John F. Mann, who were with him on his 1846-7 expedition afterwards wrote unfavourably of him.
Mrs Cotton whose biography of Leichhardt is generally written in a strain of eulogy states that both men "had motives of revenge", but the evidence for this statement is insufficient. Mrs Cotton says of Mann's account that "it is impossible to take the book seriously", yet on the same page she admits that "Leichhardt had shown his faults throughout his life--impatient, quick to anger, unjust sometimes, given to despair, harsh, unsympathetic, selfish, prone to melancholy; he had his hour of them all". These, however, are the faults attributed to him by Mann, and if he had shown them under the conditions of normal life, there is reason to think they would have appeared while he was under the strain and worry of an exploring expedition. A. H. Chisholm in his Strange New World confirms what has been said against Leichhardt and allows him few virtues. He had courage and great belief in himself, and in spite of bad mistakes made in his later expeditions, his early journey from Glendon station to Moreton Bay suggests that he had a certain faculty for finding his way, though he was certainly not a good bushman. His best journey was the three thousand mile trek to Port Essington, during which much good land was found. The mystery of his fate became an Australian legend, and he was given too high a place as a man and as an explorer. Later information has now made it possible for him to be seen in truer perspective.
Catherine D. Cotton, Ludwig Leichhardt and the Great South Land; J. F. Mann, Eight Months with Dr Leichhardt in the years 1846-1847; Daniel Bunce, Australasiatic Reminiscences; A. H. Chisholm, Strange New World; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. XXIV to XXVI; Ludwig Leichhardt, Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia; R. L. Jack, Northmost Australia, vol. I; The A.B.C. Weekly, 4 April 1942.
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LENNOX, DAVID (1788-1873),bridge-builder, |
was born at Ayr, Scotland, in 1788. He became a stonemason. had much experience working on bridges designed by the well-known engineer, Thomas Telford, and possibly influenced by Dr Lang's emigration efforts, came to Australia as an ordinary passenger on the Florentia which arrived at Sydney on it August 1832. Soon afterwards he was found at work on the legislative council chambers by (Sir) T. L. Mitchell (q.v.), who obtained his appointment as sub-inspector of bridges at a salary of £120 a year. This seems to have been early recognized as inadequate pay for a man who had been a foreman on important work in England, and was now expected to be both a designer and supervisor. Governor Bourke (q.v.) in October 1834 stated that when Lennox had proved his competence he would recommend that his yearly salary should be increased to £200. Bourke, however, was slow in recognizing the worth of Lennox, for by July 1833 the first stone bridge in Australia had been completed at Lapstone Hill on the Bathurst Road, an excellent piece of work still standing a hundred years later. A more difficult piece of work was the bridge over Prospect Creek as it was subject to floods, but Lennox, using convict labour, succeeded in finishing it by January 1836, for the amazingly small sum of £1000. The length of the span was 110 feet and the width of the roadway 30 feet. Other important bridges followed in New South Wales, including the bridge at Parramatta, named Lennox Bridge after its designer. Lennox was also responsible for the Liverpool dam finished in 1836, and it is possible that he may have been the architect of St Andrew's Presbyterian church, Parramatta. He was appointed district surveyor to the Parramatta district council in November 1843, and in October 1844 he became superintendent of bridges at Port Phillip. On taking up his new duties at Melbourne his first piece of work was the building of a permanent bridge over the Yarra. Various plans had already been sent in, but Lennox prepared another with a single arch of 150 feet span which was adopted. It was completed about five years later, and formally opened on 15 November 1850. It was an excellent piece of work which looked as though it would last forever, but some 30 years later the approaches to the city were remodelled, and it was found necessary to pull down the old bridge and build a new one. Lennox was still at Melbourne when Victoria became a separate colony but he resigned his position in November 1853. His salary had remained at £250 a year until 1852, when it was raised to £300, and in 1853 to £600. On his retirement the Victorian government made him a grant of £3000. He returned to Sydney in June 1855 and built a house in Campbell-street, Parramatta, where he lived until his death on 12 November 1873. He was survived by a married daughter and her children, one of whom, Dr C. E. Rowling, afterwards practised as a physician at Parramatta and Mudgee.
Lennox was a quiet, modest man, a good tradesman and practical designer, with a talent for managing men and getting the best out of them. His bridges, simple in design, aesthetically excellent, and always suitable for their purposes, are monuments to a fine craftsman.
H. Selkirk, Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. VI, pp. 201-43; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vol. XVII; Death notice Sydney Morning Herald, 13 November 1873.
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LEWIN, JOHN WILLIAM (1770-1819),first field naturalist and first engraver in Australia, |
was born in London in 1770. His father, William Lewin, was also an artist and naturalist, his Birds of Great Britain in seven volumes was published in 1789-94. There are varying accounts about the time of Lewin's arrival in Sydney. What really happened was that Lewin was to have sailed on the Buffalo but was for some reason prevented. His wife came to Sydney on that vessel and arrived there on 3 May 1799. Lewin came on the Minerva, which arrived on 11 January 1800. (Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. V, pp. 236-7). In March 1801 he was attached to Lieutenant Grant's (q.v.) expedition to the south-west of Australia on the Bee, a tender to the Lady Nelson, but four days after the start the Bee was sent back to Port Jackson. In August he was with the expedition to the Hunter River, and in November he was on the Norfolk on a voyage to Otaheite. The Norfolk was driven ashore in March 1802, but without loss of life, and Lewin was brought back to Sydney in December of that year. He endeavoured to establish himself as a miniature and portrait painter and teacher of art, but there was probably little demand for his services, as some years later, in May 1808, his wife was keeping the Bunch of Grapes inn and store. He lived at Parramatta for a period, and during 1803-4 he drew, engraved and coloured the plates for Prodromus Entomology Natural History of Lepidopterous Insects of New South Wales. This was published in London in 1805 and contained the first engravings done in Australia. A second edition appeared in 1822. His second work, Birds of New Holland with their Natural History, vol. I, was published in London in 1808. It was subsequently issued under the titles Birds of New South Wales, and A Natural History of the Birds of New South Wales, in 1813, 1822 and 1838, but the colouring of some of the plates in the later issues was badly done. There are bibliographical problems in connexion with this book, and collectors acquiring copies may be advised to look for the watermark to be found in the paper of some of the plates, and Ferguson's Bibliography of Australia should also be consulted. In May 1808 Lewin did himself honour by signing, with 11 others, an address to Lieut.-governor Paterson with regard to the deposition of Bligh, in which they protested against what had been done "as the highest insult to the King, in the Person of his Representative, Governor Bligh; the highest outrage and contempt to the British government and the Laws . . . and to all regular Government, subordination and discipline so necessary in this Colony". In 1810 Governor Macquarie (q.v.) made Lewin coroner, with a salary of £40 a year and rations for himself and family. His salary was afterwards increased to £80 a year. In December 1817 Lewin had the opportunity of going with P. P. King (q.v.) on his voyage of discovery around Australia, presumably as naturalist and artist, but declined on account of the difficulty of providing for his family during his absence. He had now obtained a reputation as an artist, and Macquarie, on 15 December 1817, sent some examples of his drawings of plants to Earl Bathurst with the suggestion that Lewin's "Talents might be most usefully employed here in the service of the Government exclusively". In March 1819 Macquarie sent eight more drawings by Lewin of animals, birds and plants, to Earl Bathurst. Lewin, however, died on 27 August 1819 leaving a widow and son. Mrs Lewin was given a pension of £50 a year.
Froggatt (q.v.) in his memoir speaks with respect of Lewin as a naturalist, stating that "he collected the insects in all stages of development, studied their life histories, noted their food plants, and made accurate coloured drawings from the living insects". His drawings of birds are often good, and he did much other work including landscapes. Examples will be found at the Mitchell library, Sydney. His Map of Part of New South Wales, embellished with views of Sydney and its harbour, was published in London in 1825.
Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. II, III, V to X, XII; W. Moore, The Story of Australian Art; W. W. Froggatt, The Australian Naturalist, January 1930; J. A. Ferguson, Bibliography of Australia; J. J. Fletcher, Proceedings of the Linnean Society of N.S.W., vol. XLV, pp. 572-4; Sir William Dixson, Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. V, pp. 236-40; A. G. Foster, ibid, vol. V, p. 163; G. P. Whitley, ibid, vol. XIX, p. 297; Alfred J. North, Records of the Australian Museum, vol. VI, p. 121; A. Musgrave, Bibliography of Australian Entomology.
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LEWIS, DAVID EDWARD (1866-1941),public benefactor, |
son of Dafydd Lewis, a carpenter, was born at Llanrhystyd, near Aberystwyth, Wales, on 7 March 1866. His mother died at his birth, his father when he was nine years old, and the boy was brought up by his maternal grandparents, the Rev. Edward and Diana Mason. He went to a village school and at 13 was employed by a grocer in a coal-mining district. He was next apprenticed to N. H. Lewis, a draper at Neath, working very long hours, and afterwards worked for another Lewis, William Lewis of Pontnewyndd, who encouraged David to attend evening classes and had much influence on his life. The young man then went to London to study the wholesale side of the drapery business, and in 1890 decided to go to Australia. Landing at Melbourne he gained experience on the staff of Craig Williamson Pty Ltd and then in partnership with a Mr Jones started a drapers' business at Williamstown. He soon afterwards sold his interest in this business, and with J. A. Love, opened a drapery shop in Brunswick-street, Fitzroy, in 1892. This business prospered and in a year or two another shop was opened in Chapel-street, Prahron (sic), which became the principal shop and rapidly grew in size. In 1910 Love retired and Lewis became the sole proprietor. He worked hard until later years, when he did much travelling, some of which was for business purposes. In 1930 a property in Bourke-street, Melbourne, was purchased for the business, and in 1936 Lewis bought a country property in New South Wales in which he became much interested. He died at Melbourne on 17 August 1941. He was twice married and left a widow and two sons of the first marriage.
Lewis was a strong, rugged character with a keen sense of business. When he started for Australia he was aged 24 and had accumulated a capital of rather more than £100. He did not believe in waste and throughout his life remained careful in money matters, though this did not prevent him from helping people who were in need. He gave £2000 to the university of Melbourne in 1928 for laboratory extensions in the engineering school, and in his last years devoted much thought to the problem of helping boys of ability whose parents could not give them a university education. Under his will the Dafydd Lewis trust was formed which will have control of about £700,000. From the year 1943 onwards scholarships will be available to boys educated in Victorian state elementary and state secondary schools, whose parents have a joint income not exceeding the purchasing power of six pounds a week at the time of the death of Lewis. These scholarships will not only pay the university fees but will cover the cost of books, food and clothing.
Booklet issued by the Trustees of the Dafydd Lewis Trust; The Argus, 19 August, 23 and 24 September 1941; information from The Trustees Executors and Agency Co. Ltd.
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LEWIS, SIR NEIL ELLIOTT (1858-1935),premier of Tasmania, |
son of Neil Lewis, was born at Hobart on 27 October 1858. He was educated at the high school, Hobart, took the diploma of associate of arts with gold medal, and was awarded a Tasmanian scholarship. He was at Balliol College, Oxford from 1878 to 1882, graduated B.A. in 1882 and M.A. and B.C.L. in 1885. He was called to the bar of the inner temple in 1883 and remained in London until 1885. On his return to Hobart he practised as a solicitor and in 1886 was elected a member of the house of assembly for Richmond. In August 1892 he joined the Henry Dobson (q.v.) ministry as attorney-general and held office until April 1894. He became leader of the opposition in this year, and in 1897 was elected one of the Tasmanian representatives at the 1897 federal convention. On 12 October 1899 he became premier and attorney-general. It was supposed that he would enter federal politics and Barton (q.v.) made him a minister without portfolio in the first federal ministry. Lewis, however, did not stand for election and the appointment lapsed. His ministry endeavoured to encourage the producing interests and to find fresh markets. Lewis was defeated in April 1903, but he was again premier in June 1909 taking the treasurer's portfolio in addition. He resigned on 20 October 1909 but J. Earle who succeeded him was defeated a week later and Lewis became premier again until June 1912. He was in office in the Sir W. H. Lee ministry as treasurer from April 1916 to March 1922, and as chief secretary until 28 June. He then retired from politics. In 1933 he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Tasmania. He died suddenly at Hobart on 22 September 1935. He married in 1896 a daughter of Charles Youl. Lady Lewis survived him with two sons. He was created C.M.G. in 1901 and K.C.M.G. in 1902. He was the first president of the Tasmanian Amateur Athletic Association, and was much interested in education. He worked for the founding of the university of Tasmania, and for different periods was vice-chancellor and chancellor of it. A good administrator and politician of high personal character, Lewis was prominent in the life of his state for nearly 50 years.
The Mercury, Hobart, 23 September 1935; The Examiner, Launceston, 23 September 1935.
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LIGHT, WILLIAM (c. 1786-1839),founder of Adelaide, |
was born about the year 1786 either on the island of Salang or in the territory of Kedah, and spent his first six years at Penang. His father, Captain Francis Light, traded in Siam and Malaya and married Martina Rozells in 1772. There is still some doubt as to who she was, but the family tradition is that she was a princess of Kedah. Captain Light did valuable work in extending the British influence in the Malay peninsula but in October 1794 died of malaria. His son was then being educated in England, and in September 1799 joined H.M. frigate Clyde as a volunteer. In June 1801 he was made a midshipman, and in 1802 left the navy and spent some time in travelling. He visited India in 1805 and attended a sister's wedding, and in 1808 joined the army as cornet of the 4th Light Dragoons. He fought through the campaigns in Spain where his knowledge of French and Spanish proved useful, and distinguished himself by his gallantry. Napier in his history of the peninsular war gives an account of one of his feats and speaks of him as "Captain William Light distinguished by the variety of his attainments--an artist, musician, mechanist, seaman and soldier". Light was promoted lieutenant in 1809, became a captain in 1814, and in May 1815 he was offered the post of brigade-major in the Household cavalry, but was just too late to fight at Waterloo. For part of the next six years Light was on half-pay and he left the army in 1821. He had expectations from his father's estate but in 1818 found that the land had been alienated. An action against the East India Company resulted in his receiving £20,000 in settlement of his claim. He was travelling in Europe during 1822, and spent much time in Sicily making sketches. These re-drawn by the famous water-colour artist, Peter De Wint, were published in 1823 under the title Sicilian Sketches from Drawings by P. De Wint, The Original Sketches by Major Light. In the same year he was fighting on the Spanish side against the French and was wounded in the thigh. He returned to England in November and met Mary Bennet, a daughter of the Duke of Richmond and Mrs Bennet. They were married in October 1824 and during the next 10 years spent much time in travelling in Europe and Egypt. In 1828 a volume of Views of Pompeii, after Light's drawings, was published at London. By September 1834 husband and wife had agreed to separate, and in that month Light went from England to Egypt as commander of the Nile, a paddle steamer. In Egypt Light met Captain John Hindmarsh (q.v.) who, on the Nile being charted by Mehemet Ali, was given command of it. Light went with him as second in command. Hindmarsh, however, resigned in February 1835 and Light again became captain of the Nile. He resigned on 1 November 1835 and, returning to England, narrowly missed being appointed the first governor of South Australia. He was warmly recommended by Colonel C. J. Napier who had refused the position, but in the meantime Hindmarsh had been appointed. Hindmarsh, however, strongly recommended that Light should be given a responsible position and eventually he was gazetted surveyor-general. In May 1836 he sailed in the Rapid and arrived in South Australia on 20 August. The South Australian commissioners had entrusted Light with the entire decision as to the site of the settlement, and he at once began cruising along the coast examining the country. After some weeks he decided that the east coast of St Vincent Gulf was the most promising, but difficulty was found in finding a harbour and fresh water. On 21 November 1836 he entered Port Adelaide River and was able to report to the commissioners: "Although my duty obliges me to look at other places first, before I fix on the capital, yet I feel assured, as I did from the first, that I shall only be losing time." The absence of fresh water disqualified the harbour itself as a site for the capital, and he fixed on the present site, a choice which has met with the complete approval of posterity. At the time everyone was won over, even the governor approved, but in a little while an opposition party was formed. Hindmarsh had always been anxious to have the capital near the mouth of the Murray, and officials of the South Australian Company did not want an inland situation. In the meanwhile Light went on with his survey and laid out the 1042 acres of Adelaide in two months. In deference to the wishes of the governor he also agreed to survey 200 or 300 acres near the port. It was well that Light stood firmly by his convictions. If he had not done so, said B. T. Finniss (q.v.), "the colony would have been a failure, the first colonists would have been ruined, the capital of the company would have perished and public feeling would have ruined the commissioners".
Light's next work was the surveying of the country land but he found that his staff was insufficient. Moreover his own health was showing a change for the worse. No doubt he had undergone privations, and the controversies in which he found himself involved were not helpful to his health. During the winter months of 1837 the surveying under Light and Finniss proceeded steadily and by October the outlook for the colony was hopeful. But the report by a sealer named Walker of the discovery of a harbour near the mouth of the Murray raised the settlement site question again. Hindmarsh even went so far as to ask Lord Glenelg on 18 December 1837 for authority to move the capital. It was unfortunate that Light should have been worried in this way, as he was making good progress with the surveying of the country, 60,000 acres were surveyed by the end of the year and by May 1838 150,000 acres had been completed. (Sir) G. S. Kingston, who had been sent to England to endeavour to obtain more surveyors, returned in June to report that all assistance had been refused, that Light's methods of surveying had been condemned, and that a system of running surveys of which Light could not possibly approve had been ordered. He at once resigned and nearly the whole force of surveyors resigned in sympathy with him. Light's health got rapidly worse under the strain, but he became senior partner in the surveying firm of Light, Finniss and Company and was able to work for some months longer. The new governor, Colonel Gawler (q.v.), arrived on 12 October 1838, and it was hoped that the survey department now in a state of chaos under Kingston, might again be handed over to Light. A movement to send an address to the new governor praying for this appears to have been checked by the statement of an official that it would be fruitless because the governor was determined not to reappoint Light. In the meantime the position was given to Captain Sturt (q.v.). How nearly Light missed reappointment may be gathered from the fact that Gawler wrote to Light in November 1838, sending an extract from a dispatch from the colonization commissioners expressing their unwillingness to accept Light's resignation. In his accompanying letter Gawler said that this expression of the commissioners' feelings was just the encouragement he had needed to reappoint Light, and that he would have done so had the dispatch arrived before the position had been offered to Sturt.
In January 1839 Light went to the Para River to conduct a survey for the South Australian Company. His spirit was able to keep him in the saddle for 10 hours on one day, but he collapsed more than once. He returned to Adelaide on 21 January, and next day a spark set fire to the roof of his hut which was completely burnt out in a few minutes. Practically all his instruments, papers, journals and sketches were destroyed. He was preparing to remove to his new house at Thebarton then nearly ready. His friends showed him what kindness they could, but his remaining days were those of an invalid, though in May 1839 he attempted a journey seeking the northerly route to the Murray. He obtained copies of the commissioners' dispatches referring to him, and with the help of a portion of his diary that had been saved was able to publish at the end of June A Brief Journal of the Proceedings of William Light. His financial circumstances were not good, but in August he made his will in which he made Miss Maria Gandy, who had devotedly nursed him, sole beneficiary and executrix. He had some comfort in the fact that public opinion was moving in favour of his choice of the site of the city. He died early in the morning of 6 October 1839, and was buried in the square that bears his name. His wife who was living in England survived him with two sons, who afterwards became officers in the army, and a daughter (City of Adelaide, Municipal Year Book, 1944-5, p. 63). A monument over his grave designed by Kingston was erected by public subscription in 1843. The stone used crumbled and a new memorial was unveiled on 21 June 1905. His portrait painted by himself is at the national gallery, Adelaide. His statue by Birnie Rhind stands on Montefiore Hill, Adelaide.
Light was a man of "medium height, sallow-complexion, alert and handsome, with face clean-shaven excepting closely cut side whiskers, black curly hair, brown eyes, straight nose, small mouth and shapely chin". He was a gallant soldier, a capable artist and a charming companion with great general ability, but his crowning feat was his finding the site of Adelaide and in spite of all opposition getting it adopted. His last days were clouded by illness and anxiety, but he ranks among the great pioneers of British colonization.
M. P. Mayo, The Life and Letters of Colonel William Light; T. Gill, Colonel William Light, the Founder of Adelaide; A. F. Steuart, A Short Sketch of the Lives of Francis and William Light; A. Grenfell Price, Founders and Pioneers of South Australia; City of Adelaide, Municipal Year Book, 1944-5, pp. 53-66.
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LILLEY, SIR CHARLES (1830-1897),premier and chief justice of Queensland, |
was born at Newcastle on Tyne, England, on 27 May 1830, the son of Thomas Lilley. He was educated at University College, London, and intending to study law, was articled to a solicitor. He gave this up, enlisted in the army, and while stationed at Preston did some lecturing on temperance and industrial questions. This brought him into disfavour with his superior officers, but some friends purchased his discharge. He remained at Preston and worked on the committee which made possible the Preston Free library. Deciding to go to Australia he arrived at Sydney on 4 July 1856. Soon afterwards he went to Brisbane, joined the crown solicitor's office, and finished his law course. He took up journalism, acquired an interest in the Moreton Bay Courier, afterwards the Brisbane Courier, and for two years was its editor. He was prominent in the movement for separation and, elected to the first Queensland legislative assembly by a majority of only three votes, held the seat for the remainder of his parliamentary career. He was called to the bar in 1861 and established a good practice. In September 1865 he succeeded John Bramston as attorney-general in the first Herbert (q.v.) ministry, and held the same position in the Macalister (q.v.) ministry which succeeded it. On 7 August 1866 he was again attorney-general in the second Macalister ministry and was responsible for much legislation before the defeat of the ministry in August 1867. On 25 November 1868 he became premier, and also at first attorney-general, and then colonial secretary. His most important work as premier was the introduction of free education which came into force in January 1870. Queensland was the first of the Australian colonies to adopt this principle. As a protest against the monopoly of the A.S.N. Company Lilley ordered three vessels to be constructed for the Queensland government at Sydney. One, the Governor Blackall, was actually completed, and the A.S.N. Company as a result reduced its charges. Lilley, however, had acted without reference to his colleagues and, a vote of censure having been moved, was deserted by all his followers except one when the division took place. However, when the A. H. Palmer (q.v.) ministry was formed in May 1870 he was elected leader of the opposition. In January 1874 Macalister, having carried a vote of no confidence, offered to stand aside so that Lilley might be premier. He, however, declined office of any kind, but shortly afterwards accepted the position of acting-judge of the supreme court. He became a judge in July 1874, and in 1879 succeeded Sir James Cockle (q.v.) as chief justice. He was much interested in education and was largely instrumental in founding the Brisbane grammar school. In 1891 he was chairman of the commission which reported in favour of founding a university at Brisbane. In 1893 some comments on the financial transactions of Sir Thomas McIlwraith led to threats of removal from his office. Lilley, who had been intending to retire, resigned his position and put up as a Labour candidate against McIlwraith in the electorate of Brisbane North, but was defeated. He had a severe illness in 1896 and died on 20 August 1897. He married in 1858 Miss S. J. Jeays and was survived by a large family including several sons. He was knighted in 1881.
Lilley was an excellent speaker and a good judge, a scorner of mere forms and quibbles. He was scarcely a good parliamentary leader because his ideas were in advance of his times. All his life he had been in sympathy with the poorer-paid classes of the colony, and when he attended the laying of the foundation stone of the trades hall at Brisbane in 1891 he showed his sympathy with Labour ideals in an outspoken address. An able and completely honest man of strong democratic convictions, he gave valuable service to his state in many capacities.
The Brisbane Courier, 21 and 23 August 1897; The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 August 1897; C. A. Bernays, Queensland Politics During Sixty Years; P. Mennell, The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.
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LINDSAY, DAVID (1856-1922),explorer,[ also refer to David LINDSAY page at Project Gutenberg Australia] |
son of Captain John Scott Lindsay formerly of Dundee, Scotland, was born at Goolwa, South Australia, on 20 June 1856. He entered the state government survey department in 1872, and was gazetted as a senior surveyor in March 1875. In 1878 he was appointed surveyor-general for the Northern Territory. In 1882 he resigned from the government service to take up private practice, but about a year later was placed in charge of a government expedition to the Northern Territory. The party, consisting of four white men and two blacks, fell in with hostile aborigines who attacked them and were only driven off by the use of fire-arms. Some of the horses had been stampeded during the conflict and the explorers only reached civilization after suffering many privations. Lindsay subsequently explored territory between the overland telegraph line and the Queensland border and discovered a payable mica field. In 1886 he was exploring in the region of the MacDonnell Ranges and discovered so-called rubies. Early in 1891 he was placed in charge of the Elder scientific exploring expedition entirely equipped by Sir Thomas Elder (q.v.). Starting from Warrina, South Australia, on 2 May 1891 with the intention of covering as much unexplored territory as possible between there and the western coast of Australia, the expedition was unfortunate in striking an extremely dry season, the results were disappointing, and the expedition was abandoned without completing much that had been intended. However, in the 11 months to 4 April 1892 over 4000 miles were traversed, and about 80,000 square miles were mapped. Charges were made by the second officer and three other members of the party concerning Lindsay's management of the expedition, but after an inquiry had been held he was exonerated. In 1895 Lindsay was in business as a stockbroker, formed various companies in connexion with Western Australian mines, and not long before war broke out in 1914 was in London raising capital for development work in the Northern Territory. This work and other projects had to be abandoned on account of the war. After the war Lindsay was in the Northern Territory for three and a half years carrying out topographical surveys for the federal government. Some good pastoral land was discovered, and Lindsay satisfied himself that the Queensland artesian water system extended some 150 miles farther west than its supposed limits. He was working in the north again in 1922 but was attacked by illness and died in the Darwin hospital of heart disease on 17 December 1922. He married Annie T. S. Lindsay who survive him with four sons and a daughter. Lindsay was tall and broad-shouldered of a genial disposition, a typical and capable bushman.
The Register and The Advertiser, Adelaide, 19 December 1922; The Times, 19 December 1922; Journal of the Elder Scientific Exploring Expedition, 1891-2.
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LINDSAY, RUBY.See DYSON, WILLIAM HENRY. |
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LINLITHGOW, LORD.See HOPE, JOHN ADRIAN LOUIS. |
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LITTLEJOHN, WILLIAM STILL (1859 1933),schoolmaster, |
was the son of W. Littlejohn, watchmaker and jeweller He was born at Turriff, Scotland on 19 September 1859, and was educated first at the board schools at Alford and Peterhead, and then at the Aberdeen grammar school and King's College, Aberdeen university. He represented his university at Rugby football and graduated M.A. in 1879. He had partly maintained himself by winning bursaries and by coaching. His father and brother emigrated to New Zealand and in 1881 obtained nominated passages for the remainder of the family. In the interim William had qualified as a teacher, had been living in Edinburgh with his mother doing university coaching, and on two occasions had been a resident master at boarding schools.
Littlejohn arrived at Wellington about Christmas time 1881. He obtained the position of third master at Nelson College which then had a roll-call of about 150, and entered on his work early in 1882, a tall, burly, bearded, fair young man with a strong Aberdeen burr. He immediately began to be an influence in the school, playing football and cricket with the boys after school hours, and showing an immense interest in his teaching. His own training had been a classical one but having undertaken to teach an elementary class chemistry, he did so by studying it one lesson ahead of his class; and, finding there was no laboratory, persuaded the headmaster to convert a box-room into one. He was one of those men who could obtain a reasonable knowledge of a subject in a short time, and it was said of him in later years that he was capable of taking a form in any one of the 20 subjects of the intermediate public examinations. He not only took charge of the games, he commanded the cadet corps, And with his usual thoroughness gave up a holiday period, training at a camp for officers. At Christmas 1885 he was married to Jean Berry with whom he had had an understanding in Scotland. A change of principals took place at Nelson College, and in his twenty-eighth year Littlejohn became second master. He also took over the duties of house-master until the new principal, W. J. Ford, could arrive from England at the beginning of the second term. When he did arrive he was amazed at the extra duties carried out by his assistant. When he said so to Littlejohn the reply was that a man who is not brilliant has to do something to make up for it. It was about this time that Ernest, afterwards Lord, Rutherford became Littlejohn's pupil and obtained his first introduction to physics and chemistry. Littlejohn afterwards gave him special coaching for a university scholarship in which he was successful. In 1889 Mr Ford resigned and returned to England to become principal of Leamington College. An opportunity was lost in not appointing Littlejohn to the vacant position, and J. W. Joynt, a distinguished scholar but without teaching experience, was made principal. During his 10 years term New Zealand had a period of depression and the new principal had not the special qualities necessary to overcome his difficulties. When he resigned at the end of 1897 Littlejohn became principal, and during the next six years there was a very large increase in the number of day boys and the boarders increased from 27 to about 90. Organization and hard work had much to do with his success, but his realization of the fact that boys have minds that are better when developed than crammed was an important factor too. In 1903 he heard that a principal was wanted for Scotch College, Melbourne, and with some misgivings applied for the position. He was appointed and took charge of the school at the beginning of 1904.
Scotch College, the oldest secondary school in Victoria, had always held a leading place, but Littlejohn felt that the scope of its education must be widened. Boys should be made fit to accept responsibility so he brought in the prefect system, and he revived the cadet corps whose officers had to earn their positions. Sport should have its place in the life of the school, but it must be kept in its place. He found that there was some jealousy and ill-feeling among the public schools which manifested itself at school contests, and his influence with his own boys and with the headmasters of other schools helped to bring about a better feeling. He encouraged the founding of the school magazine, the Scotch Collegian, entirely written by the boys which became possibly the best school paper in Australia. Other outside interests were fostered, such as the literary, science and debating clubs, the dramatic society, the Australian student Christian movement, the school library, museum, natural history club, boy scouts. All these and other movements too were added gradually, and every boy had the opportunity of developing his particular interests. The school roll was getting larger and larger, for some years the increase averaged 100 each year. In 1911 Littlejohn found that he was threatened with blindness, but a year's rest in Europe and America averted this. The war period was a period of great sorrow with over 1200 old boys at the front of whom over 200 were killed. That the school furnished three generals including the commander-in-chief, General Sir John Monash (q.v.), and earned 184 distinctions was small comfort.
The school had out-grown its limits and it was decided that a move must be made. A site of 60 acres was found at Hawthorn and gradually the whole school was transferred beginning with the preparatory school. The move was completed in 1925. In providing the funds for the buildings much help was given by the old boys organized through the old Scotch Collegians Association. The school continued to increase and the separation of the preparatory school under a headmaster gave only a temporary relief. It is a question whether any principal should be expected to control so many as 900 senior boys. Littlejohn showed few signs of the strain he was under, but in August 1933 he became ill with bronchial influenza and died on 7 October 1933. He was survived by his wife, two sons and three daughters.
Littlejohn was a great organizer and a great schoolmaster. He believed in discipline but his nickname among the boys, "The Boss", became not only a symbol of authority but a term of affection. When he died he was mourned by thousands of old and present boys. He was a religious man but he was more interested in the sincerity of a man's religion than its particular tenets. He was trained in the classical tradition and believed in scholarship, but to him the important thing was that a school should give a training for life.
A. E. Pratt, Dr W. S. Littlejohn, The Story of a Great Headmaster; The Scotch Collegian, December 1933; personal knowledge.
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LIVERSIDGE, ARCHIBALD (1847-1927),chemist, |
son of John Liversidge, was born at Turnham Green, England, on 17 November 1847. He was educated at a private school and by private tutors in science, and in 1866 went to the Royal College of Chemistry and Royal School of Mines. In the following year he won a Royal exhibition and medals in chemistry, mineralogy and metallurgy. He became an associate of the School of Mines and in 1870 was awarded an open scholarship in science at Christ's College, Cambridge. During his first year in Cambridge he filled a temporary position as demonstrator of chemistry at the university laboratory. In 1872 he accepted the appointment of reader in geology at the university of Sydney and began his duties there early in 1873. He became professor of geology and mineralogy in 1874, and in 1876 he published The Minerals of New South Wales, being a reprint of a paper read at the Royal Society of New South Wales in December 1874. A second and enlarged edition appeared in 1882 and the third edition in 1888. In 1878 he visited the leading museums, universities and technical colleges of Europe, and in 1880 his Report upon certain Museums for Technology, Science and Art, was published at Sydney. In 1881 the title of his chair was altered to chemistry and mineralogy, and in 1891 to chemistry only. He was dean of the faculty of science from its foundation in 1882 to 1904 and he founded the school of mines at the university in 1892.
Liversidge took much interest in the Royal Society of New South Wales, was honorary secretary from 1874 to 1884 and 1886 to 1888, was its president in 1885, 1889 and 1900, and was for many years editor of the Society's Journal and Proceedings. In 1888 Liversidge, after much preliminary work, founded the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, was its honorary secretary from 1888 to 1909 and president in 1898. He was chairman of the original board of the Sydney technical museum, was a trustee of the Australian museum at Sydney, and he founded the Sydney section of the Society of Chemical Industry in 1902. He resigned his professorship at Sydney in December 1907 and became emeritus professor. In 1909 Liversidge returned to England and became vice-president of the Society of Chemical Industry, 1909-12, and vice-president of the Chemical Society 1910-13. Thenceforth he lived in retirement near London and died on 26 September 1927. He was unmarried. In addition to the works mentioned Liversidge published for the use of students Tables for Qualitative Chemical Analysis (second edition 1903). He also wrote over 100 papers on chemistry and mineralogy for scientific journals, many of which were issued as pamphlets, and during his stay in Australia he was an untiring worker in the cause of science. Maiden (q.v.), in his "History of the Royal Society of New South Wales", said of Liversidge that "he practically re-founded the Society, organized its activities on proper lines, and made it the power for good it is to-day". He laid the foundations of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, was an admirable honorary secretary for 21 years, and retained his interest in the association after his retirement to England. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, London, in 1882, was honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and was given the honorary degree of LL.D. by Glasgow university. Under his will a sum of £2500 was left to the university of Sydney for scholarships and a research lectureship in chemistry.
Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. LXII, p. 8; The Times, 21 September 1927; Who's, Who, 1927; H, E, Barff, A Short Historical Account of the University of Sydney; British Museum Catalogue; Calendars of the University of Sydney.
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LOCKYER, EDMUND (1784-1860),founder of Albany, Western Australia,[ also refer to Edmund LOCKYER page at Project Gutenberg Australia] |
was born at Plymouth on 21 January 1784 and entered the army in 1803 (Aust. Ency.). He became a major in 1819 and came to Australia in 1825. He went up the Brisbane River in a boat during that year and in November 1826 was sent in command of a detachment of soldiers to King George's Sound to forestall the French government and establish a settlement there. He did so and was able to report that there was abundance of water, good timber, fish and game. The site of Albany was chosen, but when the settlement was transferred to the Swan River government in 1831 it was found that little progress had been made. Lockyer returned to Sydney in April 1827, shortly afterwards retired from the military service, and in 1828 was appointed surveyor of roads and bridges. This post was abolished by the home authorities in the following year. He then took up and worked a considerable area of land. Towards the end of his life he became sergeant at arms in the New South Wales legislative council, and subsequently usher of the black rod. He died while still in this position on 10 June 1860. His son, Sir Nicholas Colston Lockyer (1855-1933), entered the public service of New South Wales in 1868, rose to be chief commissioner of taxation and collector of customs, and, transferring to the Commonwealth service in 1901, was appointed assistant comptroller-general of customs. He became comptroller1er-general in 1910. He was a member of the interstate commission from 1913 to 1920 when he retired from the service. He did valuable work in connexion with repatriation. He died on 26 August 1933. He was created C.B.E. in 1918 and was knighted in 1926.
The Army List, 1826; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. XII to XV and XIX; J. S. Battye, Western Australia, a History; The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 June 1860 and 28 August 1933; The Argus, Melbourne, 28 August 1933.
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LONG, GEORGE MERRICK (1875-1930),educationist and Anglican bishop, |
was born at Carisbrook, Victoria, on 5 November 1875, the youngest child of George Long. Both parents were English. He was educated at Maryborough grammar school, on leaving school entered a bank, but when 19 years of age decided to enter the Church of England ministry. He was accepted as a student for holy orders by Bishop Goe (q.v.) of Melbourne, and spent four months as assistant to Archdeacon Herring on the Upper Murray. He entered Trinity College, university of Melbourne, at the beginning of 1896 and graduated B.A. with honours in 1899. He was ordained deacon in 1899, priest in 1900, and from 1899 was given charge of the parish of Foster in South Gippsland, Victoria. It was a large parish which had suffered much from recent bushfires in which both the church and vicarage had been burnt to the ground. Long rallied his people, a new church and a vicarage were built, and the influence of his ministry was felt for many years after he left. But Long had been influenced too. He had lived with men who had wrenched a living from a difficult soil, and he remembered all his days the courage, perseverance and hard work that so often brought them little more than a bare living. In 1902 when Canon Hindley became archdeacon of Melbourne Long was asked to become his assistant at Holy Trinity Church, Kew, a suburb of Melbourne. He had other offers which seemed more important, but decided to go to Kew. Both men were strong personalities; it might have been feared that they would have clashed, but they worked perfectly together. Soon afterwards the question of establishing a secondary school for boys was raised, and a start was made by establishing one for those up to 12 years of age. It was soon realized that one was needed for older boys, but great difficulty was found in obtaining a suitable headmaster. At last the position was offered to Long who was advised by Archbishop Clarke (q.v.) to accept it.
Trinity grammar school had about 50 boys when Long took charge. In a few years the numbers rose to 300, and it continues to be one of the more important schools of its kind in Australia. Long was an excellent headmaster. An old boy of the school has summed up the attitude of his teaching in a few words, "To resist the brute, to protect the weak, to work for the general good, to face the light" (Martin Boyd, A Single Flame, p. 25). Long had many offers during his stay at Kew from other churches and in 1910 was made a canon of St Paul's cathedral, Melbourne. In 1911 it was suggested that he should apply for the headmastership of Geelong grammar school, one of the six Victorian public schools, but while he was considering this he received a telegram inviting him to become bishop of Bathurst, in New South Wales. It meant a reduction in his income, and much hard work and responsibility for a man still only 35 years of age, but after taking advice he decided to accept the position.
Long was consecrated bishop of Bathurst on 30 November 1911 and began his work with much energy. He showed that he had a strong business sense, and at once set about placing the finances of the diocese on a more secure footing. He found the work of the diocese being hampered by obsolete ordinances and succeeded in having them revised, he encouraged the bush brotherhood which worked in the outlying districts, he founded new schools and began the erection of a new cathedral. His work was interrupted when in 1917 he went to France as a chaplain, but in 1918 he was put in charge of a movement to organize vocational and civil training for the Australian soldiers. He was given the position of director of education in the A.I.F. with the rank of brigadier-general. He did valuable work in this position, but his health broke "under a strain probably heavier than that borne by any other great leader of the A.I.F., from which it is said he never recovered". (C. E. W. Bean, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918, vol. VI, p. 1071). He returned to Australia in July 1919 and took up the work of his diocese again. He gave much thought to the drafting of a new constitution for the Church of England in Australia, and with the assistance of Sir John Peden the constitution was prepared and presented to the convention held in 1926. Long managed the matter with great tact and forbearance, and eventually the constitution was accepted by all the dioceses except Sydney which asked for additional provisions. In 1927 a coadjutor bishop of Bathurst was appointed and at the end of that year Long was elected bishop of Newcastle. Bathurst vainly asked him to stay and the deputation which waited on him included not only members of his own church but men of all the leading denominations of the town. Long, however, felt that it was his duty to go to Newcastle, and he was enthroned there on 2 May 1928. Newcastle, then a city of about 100,000 inhabitants with a large industrial population, offered a great field for a man of his abilities, and he soon made his influence felt. On one occasion considerable support was given to the proposition that he should act as mediator in a strike at the coal mines. He had been there less than two years when in March 1930 he went to England to attend the Lambeth conference. On the second day of the conference Long was taken ill and died on 9 July 1930 of cerebral haemorrhage. He married in 1900 Alexandra, daughter of Alfred Joyce, who survived him with three sons and three daughters. He was given the honorary degree of LL.D. by Cambridge university in 1918 and by Manchester in 1919. He was created C.B.E. in 1919.
Long was tall, dark and rugged-featured. An athlete in his youth, his obvious sincerity enabled him to be a good influence as a student at the university, as a bush parson, and as head of a large secondary school. His sympathies were with the manual workers, but he did not interfere in politics. He was a good though not great preacher, and he wrote little, his one excursion into controversy, Papal Pretensions (1913), did not show him at his best. His real strength lay in the fact that no one could come in contact with him without being the better for it, and that he was a great organizer, hard-working, tactful, able, and obviously seeking what was best for all concerned. Had he not died at the comparatively early age of 54 there was no ecclesiastical office of his church in Australia to which he would not have become entitled.
W. H. Johnson, The Rt Revd George Merrick Long, a Memoir; The Times, 10 July 1930; The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 and 12 July 1930; C. E. W. Bean, The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918, vol. VI, pp. 1062-3 and 1071; The Bulletin, 16 July 1930; personal knowledge.
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LONGSTAFF, SIR JOHN (1862-1941),painter, |
was the son of Ralph Longstaff, a storekeeper in the mining town of Clunes, Victoria, and was born on 10 March 1862. He was educated at Clunes state school, and as a child showed ability in drawing. He also experimented in painting and wished to become an artist, but his father did not approve and the boy was eventually sent to Melbourne and entered the office of Messrs Sargood, Butler and Nichol. He, however, joined the classes at the national gallery, Melbourne, where his talent was recognized by the director, G. F. Folingsby (q.v.), who aroused the interest of Mr Butler, one of Longstaff's employers. He eventually persuaded the young man's father to allow his son to give full time to the study of art. In 1886 the national gallery scholarship was founded, and in the following year Longstaff won the first competition with a picture called "Breaking the News". He went to Paris, studied first under Fernand Cormon, and began exhibiting in 1891 at the Royal Academy and at the Old Salon, where he obtained an honourable mention. His work was hung in good positions at the academy and salon many times during the coming years. In 1894 his picture, "The Sirens", became the property of the national gallery of Victoria under the terms of the travelling scholarship, and in 1898 this gallery purchased his large landscape "Gippsland, Sunday night, February 20, 1898". His excellent "Lady in Black" had been purchased by the national gallery at Sydney in 1896. Longstaff had returned to Australia in that year and during the next five years he executed many portraits. Among these may be mentioned especially the masterly study of Henry Lawson (q.v.), painted practically in one sitting of five hours and completed with a sitting of one hour the next day. This was commissioned by the proprietors of the Bulletin when Lawson was passing through Melbourne on his way to England, in 1900, but soon afterwards it was purchased by the Sydney gallery. In 1901 he was given the commission to paint an Australian historical picture for £1000 under the Gilbee bequest. One of its conditions was that the picture must be painted outside Australia, and probably on this account Longstaff returned to London in 1901.
In England Longstaff built up a sound connexion as a portrait painter and also did some teaching at an art school. He had much difficulty with his Gilbee bequest picture of "Burke and Wills" for which he chose a canvas 14 ft x 9 ft, but it was eventually completed and handed to the Melbourne gallery in 1907. He paid a short visit to Australia in 1911, and during the 1914-18 war did a series of pictures as a war artist now in the Australian war museum at Canberra. He established himself permanently in Australia in 1923 and commenced another series of distinguished portraits. He was at different times president of the Victorian Artists' Society, the Australian Art Association, and the Australian Academy of Art, but he was not anxious to take up administrative work though always interested in the work of promising younger men. In 1927 he became a trustee of the national gallery of Victoria and in 1928 he was knighted. He was painting as well as ever when 75 years of age, and looking much younger than his years, until an illness about this time led to a gradual deterioration in his strength. He, however, was able to attend a committee meeting of the trustees of the national gallery a few days before his death on 1 October 1941. He married in 1887 Rosa, daughter of Henry Crocker, and was survived by three sons and a daughter. Lady Longstaff had died about four years before.
Tall, handsome, debonair, and personally popular, Longstaff was wrapped up in his painting. He had great mastery of his materials and made few preliminary studies. No other Australian artist was so uniformly successful with his portraits, but a few seem especially notable such as the "Lawson" and the "Lady in Black" at Sydney, and the "Dr Leeper" and "Moscovitch" at Melbourne. His "Lady in Grey" in the Connell collection is a charming example of his early work. His "Sirens" is an excellent subject picture of its period, and during his last years he did a few good pieces of outdoor work such as the "Morning Sunlight" in the Melbourne gallery. Longstaff is also represented in the galleries at Perth, Bendigo, and Castlemaine, and at Canberra.
J. D. Fitzgerald, The Lone Hand, June 1908; W. Moore, Life, May 1911; W. Moore, The Story of Australian Art; Art in Australia, April 1931; The Herald, 27 November 1919; The Argus, 2 October 1941; Debrett's Peerage, etc., 1936; personal knowledge.
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LONSDALE, WILLIAM (1800-1864),first administrator at Port Phillip. |
Little can be traced about his early life, his death notice in The Times for 31 March 1864, says he was then aged 63, which suggests that he was probably born after March, in 1800. The "Kenyon papers" at the public library at Melbourne give 1802 as his year of birth, and state that he entered the army as an ensign on 8 July 1819 and became a captain in the King's Own regiment of foot in 1834. He arrived in Sydney on 14 December 1831. In September 1836 Governor Bourke (q.v.) appointed him police magistrate at Port Phillip. His instructions were that he was given "the general superintendence in the new settlement of all such matters as require the immediate exercise of the authority of the Government". He arrived in the Rattlesnake near the mouth of the Yarra on 29 September 1836, and remained on it until 30 November while a house was being built for him. The choice of a site for the official centre of the settlement was decided by Lonsdale. He at first preferred the site of Williamstown because of its proximity to the anchorage, but not being able to obtain water there, he decided on the present site of the city. Governor Bourke visited Port Phillip in March 1837, and in a dispatch to Lord Glenelg dated 14 June reported that Lonsdale "had conducted the varied duties of his station with great ability and zeal". Lonsdale resigned from the army in March and his salary of £250 per annum was then increased to £300. He had trouble with Robert Russell (q.v.) early in 1839. Russell had begun the survey of Melbourne in November 1836, but in May 1837 Hoddle arrived from Sydney, took the survey over, and Russell later became clerk of works. Lonsdale considered he was not properly supervising the men engaged upon roads and buildings, but Russell questioned his authority in this and other matters, and in May 1839 Lonsdale was obliged to suggest that Russell should no longer be retained in the service. La Trobe (q.v.) arrived in Melbourne on 1 October 1839, and in April 1840 Lonsdale was appointed sub-treasurer at a salary of £400 a year and house. Though his salary was not large he was apparently of good financial standing as Gipps (q.v.), in his dispatch of 14 July 1840, mentions that Lonsdale had "given security to the amount of £8000". In October 1846, when La Trobe went to Tasmania to act temporarily as governor, Lonsdale took his place at Melbourne. In July 1851, when Victoria was separated from New South Wales, Lonsdale was appointed its first colonial secretary. He held this office until July 1853, when he became colonial treasurer with a salary of £1500 a year (Victorian Blue Book, 1851). He returned to England about the year 1855, and lived in retirement until his death at London on 28 March 1864. He married in April 1835 Martha, daughter of B. Smith, who survived him with two sons. Lonsdale-street, Melbourne, is named after him, and there is a portrait of him at the Mitchell library, Sydney. He was an admirable public servant, just and competent, always spoken of with respect in the chronicles of the period.
Sir Ernest Scott, The Victorian Historical Magazine, vols. IV, pp. 97-116, and VI, pp. 145-159; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. XVIII, XX, XXII, XXIII, XXV; Victoria the First Century; R. D. Boys, First Years at Port Phillip; Kenyon papers, Public Library, Melbourne.
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LORD, SIMEON (1773-1840),pioneer merchant, |
was born in 1773. He was transported to New South Wales, probably for a trifling, and certainly a youthful offence, for he was only 18 when he arrived in 1791. In a few years he established a general merchandise and agency business, and in 1800 with a partner purchased a brig the Anna Josepha. He also became an auctioneer and prospered, a return made in 1804 said that the "estimated value of commercial articles imported from abroad in the hands of Simeon Lord and other dealers was £15,000". Though his position was not comparable with that of Robert Campbell (q.v.), it is clear that already he was one of the leading merchants of Sydney. His business was on the site of the corner of Bridge-street and Macquarie-place. In 1807 Bligh (q.v.) spoke adversely about his business dealings with the masters of ships, and judge Field (q.v.) several years later spoke in a similar way. Aspersions of this kind against members of the emancipist class at this period must, however, be accepted with caution. No doubt Lord was a keen business man well able to look after his own interests, but he also had enterprise and courage, valuable qualities in the developing colony. He was engaged in trade with New Zealand, and in 1809 had the misfortune to lose a valuable cargo of sealskins in the Boyd, which he had chartered and sent to New Zealand to complete its cargo with a consignment of spars. The captain flogged a Maori chief for alleged misbehaviour, and in consequence the vessel was raided and looted, nearly everyone on board being killed. In spite of this disaster Lord joined in an attempt to obtain a monopoly to establish a flax plantation in New Zealand, and manufacture canvas and cordage from it in Sydney. The monopoly was, however, not granted and Lord turned his hands to other things. He employed a man to experiment in dyes and tanning, and was the first to weave with Australian wool. He succeeded in weavings coarse cloths, blankets and stockings and also made hats.
Long before this, in May 1810, Lord was made a magistrate and he became a frequent guest at government house. Macquarie in his dispatch to Viscount Castlereagh stating his intention to make Lord a magistrate described him as "an opulent merchant". He was, however, a man of little education, and when J. T. Bigge (q.v.) was making his investigations in 1819-20, the alleged unsuitability of Lord for his position was used as a stick to beat Macquarie. Lord soon afterwards resigned and appears to have been less prosperous in his business for a period. He, however, succeeded in compounding a claim for land resumed for public purposes in Sydney, by accepting in 1828 a large grant of land in the country. He did not come into public notice after this, and died on 29 January 1840. He married and his sons were well-known in public life. One of them, George William Lord (1818-80), a pastoralist, was elected to the first New South Wales legislative assembly in 1856, and transferred to the legislative council in 1877. He was colonial treasurer in the third Martin (q.v.) ministry from December 1870 to May 1872. Another son, Francis Lord, was a member of parliament for many years, and a third son, Edward Lord, became city treasurer at Sydney.
A. W. Jose, Builders and Pioneers of Australia; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. II, IV to X, XIV, ser. IV, vol. I; J. M. Forde, Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. III, pp. 569-75.
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LOWE, ROBERT, VISCOUNT SHERBROOKE (1811-1892),politician, |
was the son of the Rev. Robert Lowe, rector of Bingham and prebendary of Southwell, Notts. His mother was the daughter of the Rev. Reginald Pyndar. Lowe was born at Bingham in Nottinghamshire, on 4 December 1811. He was an albino, and his sight was so weak that at first it was thought he was unfit to be sent to school. In 1822 he went to a school at Southwell, then to one at Risley, and in 1825 to Winchester as a commoner. In his fragment of autobiography he gives an unpleasing picture of the under-feeding and other conditions of the school life of that time. Latin and Greek were then the main subjects of study and Lowe records that both were easy to him. In 1829 he went to University College, Oxford, and found the change delightful. Though he idled in his first year he graduated in 1833 with a first class in classics and a second class in mathematics, a remarkable feat for a man so hampered by his sight. The Union Debating Society at that time had many brilliant members, but Lowe more than held his own, and was considered one of the finest speakers in the union. In 1835 he was elected fellow of Magdalen, and on 29 March 1836 was married to Georgiana, daughter of George Orred, and became a very successful private tutor. His time was so taken up that J. A. Froude records that he had wished to become Lowe's pupil but there was no room for him. Lowe decided to go to London and practise law and was called to the bar in January 1842. His studies, however, had injured his already weak eyes, and he was advised by specialists that they would not last longer than seven years. Realizing the difficulties of obtaining an important position in London in so short a period, Lowe decided to emigrate to Sydney and practise as a conveyancer. He sailed on S June 1842 and arrived at Sydney exactly four months later.
Lowe and his wife both formed a good opinion of the colony and its future prospects, in spite of the severe financial depression through which it was passing. A few months later, however, Lowe's eyes became so bad he was forbidden to read, a great deprivation for a man of so active a mind. Much time was spent in visiting friends in the country but after being idle for nearly nine months Lowe in November 1843 began again to practise his profession. In the same month he was appointed to a vacancy in the legislative council, and at once made his mark as an orator. He had been nominated to the council by the governor, Sir Geo. Gipps (q.v.) who probably hoped to find in him a valuable ally. But Lowe was not the kind of man to be trammelled in this way and he subsequently became a bitter opponent of Gipps. How independent he could be was shown when Dr Lang (q.v.) as a representative of Port Phillip moved a motion for the separation of that district from New South Wales, for Lowe was his only supporter apart from the other representatives of the Port Phillip district. In August 1844, having completed the report of the Select Committee on Education of which he was chairman, Lowe resigned his seat as a nominee member of the legislative council. He had found the position untenable. As he afterwards described it: "If I voted with the Government I was in danger of being reproached as a mere tool; and if I voted with the opposition, as I did on most questions, I was reproached by the officials as a traitor to the Government."
Three months after his resignation from the council Lowe became associated with the founding of the Atlas newspaper, and was the principal of a brilliant band of contributors. He wrote most of the leading articles, and his satirical verses became a recognized feature of the journal. He was a member of the Pastoral Association of New South Wales and was a leading advocate of land reform. Gipps, though his powers were still great, was not in the position to be such a complete autocrat as the early governors, but he held firmly to the view that the colony must pay its way, and insisted on the collection of quit-rents which had been allowed to fall into abeyance. Lowe came forward for election to the council in opposition to this policy, and in April 1845 was elected unopposed. His practice as a barrister had been growing, and he was fortunate in being able to make investments in Sydney property which became very profitable. It was everywhere realized that he was one of the most gifted speakers in the council, and at a banquet given to W. C. Wentworth (q.v.) in January 1846, his speech was held to have far surpassed that of Wentworth. He never lost an opportunity for advocating the rights of the colonies. "If," he said, "the representative of Middlesex claims a right to control the destinies of New South Wales, the representative of New South Wales should have a corresponding influence on the destinies of Middlesex." Towards the end of 1846 he stopped contributing to the Atlas, and gave much time to the council. He had at first been on the side of the squatters who had been passing through a period of great difficulty, but when in September 1847 Earl Grey's orders in council arrived which practically handed over the country lands to a comparatively small number of crown tenants, Lowe threw his weight in the other scale. He was not opposed to the squatters. "I would give them every encouragement," he said . . . "but to give them a permanency of occupation of those lands--those lands to which they had no better right than that of any other colonist . . . I can never consent to."
Another burning question at this time was the proposed resumption of criminal transportation. The squatters were anxious to have the convicts as assigned servants, but there was a strong body of public opinion opposed to further transportation. Of this body Lowe was one of the leaders. He was also prominent in the agitation for land reform. His remedy was to reduce the upset price of land to five shillings an acre, leaving the squatters in possession until bona-fide settlers actually purchased the land. Lowe was not successful at the time, but continued efforts eventually brought about the much desired unlocking of the land of Australia many years later. At the general election of 1848 Lowe was again elected, and in May made a great speech in opposition to the new constitution that had been proposed by Earl Grey, and the scheme was abandoned. In the following year he made an eloquent speech at the public meeting held on Circular Quay when the convict ship Hashemy arrived, and was one of the deputation of six that waited on the governor, Sir Charles Fitzroy (q.v.). The protests of this meeting virtually made an end of the old convict system. In January 1850 Lowe and his wife sailed for England, and although he often spoke of revisiting Australia he never did so. His investments in real estate at Sydney made him financially independent for the rest of his life.
Arrived in England Lowe at first intended to practise at the bar, but in April 1851 he joined the staff of The Times for which he wrote a great number of articles on law reform and many other subjects. In July 1852 he was elected to the house of commons for Kidderminster which he represented for some years. In December he was appointed a joint secretary of the board of control for India, which position he held until January 1855. In August of that year he became vice-president of the board of trade in Palmerston's ministry, and his subsequent career was very distinguished. He was chancellor of the exchequer from 1868 to 1873, and home secretary in 1873-4. He was created Viscount Sherbrooke in 1880. In his last days his marvellous memory began to fail and he died on 27 July 1892. His first wife died on 3 November 1884. In 1885 he married Caroline, daughter of Thomas Sneyd, who survived him. There was no issue of either marriage. His Speeches and Letters on Reform, published in 1867, went into a second edition in the same year, and many of his other speeches were published separately. Poems of a Life, published in 1885, includes several of the verses written in Australia, some of which show his ability as a satirist and can still be read with interest.
Lowe was a great orator and had a brilliant intellect. He has been compared not unfavourably in these respects with both Disraeli and Gladstone. Handicapped by his eyesight, a mordant tongue, and a difficulty in being patient with people of little ability, he made some enemies and scarcely reached his full height in politics. At heart he was of a kindly nature, and while at Sydney adopted and brought up two orphan children. Sir William Windeyer (q.v.) has also told us that after his father's early death he found in Lowe a generous friend, and that he owed the continuance of his education to his kindness. Lowe came to Australia when she was just shaking herself free from the autocracy of the early governors, and with other distinguished men of the time fought a good fight and did valuable work for her.
A. Patchett Martin, Life and Letters of Viscount Sherbrooke, and Australia and the Empire; J. F. Hogan, Robert Lowe, Viscount Sherbrooke; James Bryce, Studies in Contemporary Biography; Walter Bagehot, Works, vol. V, 1915; Sir Henry Parkes, Fifty Years of Australian History; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. XXIII, XXV, XXVI; S. Elliott Napier, Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. XVIII, pp. 1-31.
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LOWRIE, WILLIAM (1857-1933),agricultural educationist, |
was the son of a shepherd, and was born near Galashiels Scotland, in 1857. He was brought up on a farm and had sufficient schooling to be able to enter Edinburgh university. He graduated M.A. in 1883, and obtaining a Highland and Agricultural Society's bursary in 1884, studied agriculture and graduated B.Sc. In 1887 he was appointed principal of the Roseworthy Agricultural College, South Australia, where he made a special study of the effects of fallowing and the use of water soluble phosphates as manures. Following this Lowrie travelled throughout the wheat-growing districts of South Australia, addressing farmers and endeavouring to persuade them to adopt his methods. In 1901 he went to New Zealand as principal of the Lincoln Agricultural College, Canterbury, and seven years later became director of agriculture in Western Australia. In 1909 he declined the offer of the chair of agriculture at the university of Sydney. He returned to South Australia in 1912 as director of agriculture, but resigned in 1914 owing to differences of opinion with the minister for agriculture regarding the reorganization of the department. After his retirement Lowrie took up farming at Echunga, South Australia, and specialized in pure-bred Border Leicester sheep. He died at Echunga on 20 July 1933. Lowrie did excellent work, especially in South Australia; no man of his time did more to make farming payable.
The Advertiser, Adelaide, 22 July 1933.
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LUCAS, ARTHUR HENRY SHAKESPEARE (1853-1936),schoolmaster and scientist, |
son of the Rev. Samuel Lucas, Wesleyan minister, was born at Stratford-on-Avon on 7 May 1853. His father was much interested in geology and botany, and the boy developed an interest in natural science. His early childhood was spent in Cornwall, and when he was about nine years of age a move was made to Stow on the Wold in Gloucestershire. Here Lucas went to his first private school, but soon afterwards was sent to the new Kingswood school at Bath, where he was given a sound education in the classics, modern languages, and mathematics. In 1870 he went to Balliol College, Oxford, with an exhibition, and mixed with men of whom many became the most distinguished of their time. An illness before his final examination prevented him from having any chance of high honours, but he later won the Burdett-Coutts geological scholarship. He then went to London to begin a medical course, and won the entrance science scholarship to the London hospital in the east end. When he was halfway through his course his elder brother was ordered to leave England and went to Australia. Lucas abandoned his course, became a master at The Leys school, Cambridge, and provided for his brother's three young children whose mother had died. He had previously won the gold medal at an examination for botany held by the Apothecaries Society, open to all medical students of the London schools. Lucas enjoyed his five years experience at The Leys school. He found the boys frank, cheery and high-spirited, fond of games and yet able to do good work in the class-rooms. He played in the football team, until he broke his collar-bone, and founded a natural history society of which the whole school became members. A museum was established to which Lucas gave his father's fine collection of fossils, and also the family collection of plants, which contained 1200 out of the 1400 described species of British flowering plants and ferns. The museum grew in after years, and obtained a reputation at Cambridge when one of the boys made interesting finds in the pleistocene beds of the Cam valley. Some work done by Lucas in the Isle of Wight, the results of which were given in a paper published in the Geological Magazine, led to Lucas being elected a fellow of the Geological Society. He applied in 1882 for the headmastership of Wesley College, Melbourne, but the appointment was given to A. S. Way (q.v.). Later on he was appointed mathematical and science master at the same school, arrived in Melbourne at the end of January 1883, and immediately began his work.
Lucas had a career of just over 40 years as a school teacher in Australia. He was 10 years at Wesley College, and was then at the end of 1892 appointed headmaster of Newington College, Sydney. During his six years at Newington the number of pupils increased by 50 per cent and the school had much academic success. In 1899 he became senior mathematical and science master at the Sydney grammar school, was acting headmaster for part of the war years, and finally headmaster from 1920 to 1923. He was an admirable teacher, beloved by many generations of schoolboys, and exercising great moral influence on them. He did not confine his life to school work, and while at Wesley College also lectured on natural science to the colleges at the university of Melbourne, and in later years lectured on physiography at the university of Sydney. He also took much interest in the various learned societies, and during his early days at Melbourne was president of the Field Naturalist's Club and edited the Victorian Naturalist for some years. He was a member of the council of the Royal Society of Victoria, and subsequently of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, of which he also became president. He contributed many papers to their proceedings; a list of over 60 of them will be found in the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, vol. LXII, pp. 250-2. He wrote with Arthur Dendy An Introduction to the Study of Botany which was published in 1892 (3rd ed. 1915), with W. H. D. Le Souef, The Animals of Australia (1909), and The Birds of Australia (1911). After retiring from school teaching at 70 years of age, Lucas became acting-professor of mathematics at the university of Tasmania for over two years. He afterwards continued his scientific studies, giving particular attention to the algae on which he was the Australian authority. His handbook, Part 1 of The Seaweeds of South Australia was issued just after his death. He contracted a cold while working on the rocks at Warrnambool in May 1936, and during the journey to his home collapsed on the train at Albury. He was taken to a private hospital and died on 10 June. He married in August 1882 Charlotte Christmas who died in 1919. He was survived by three daughters.
Lucas was modest, completely unselfish and kind. He was a fine scholar, learned in several languages and in several sciences. Possibly if he had confined himself to one department he might have obtained more distinction, but his work in any department was worthy of respect. He ranks among the greater Australian schoolmasters, and he was one of the best all-round Australian scientists of his time. His portrait by Hanke hangs in the Assembly Hall of the Sydney grammar school. His interesting autobiography, A. H. S. Lucas, Scientist, His Own Story, with appreciations by contemporaries, was published in 1937.
A. H. S. Lucas, Scientist, His Own Story; H. J. Carter, Proceedings of the Linnean Society of South Wales, vol. LXII, pp. 243-52; The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 June 1936.
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LYCETT, JOSEPH (17?-18?),artist, |
was transported to Australia about the year 1810 for forgery. While employed in the police office at Sydney he again committed forgery and was sent to Newcastle. There he painted an altar piece for the church, and on the recommendation of Captain Wallis, the commandant, was given a conditional pardon. He returned to Sydney, was allowed to practise his art, and in 1820 Governor Macquarie (q.v.) sent three of his paintings to Earl Bathurst. Lycett also visited Tasmania and did some painting there. He appears to have received a pardon, and returned to England about the end of 1822. Between July 1824 and June 1825 he issued Views in Australia, or New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land in 13 parts. These views were reissued in a volume in 1825. The 50 plates are coloured in some copies and plain in others. Nothing more is definitely known about Lycett. A manuscript note in a copy of his Views at the Mitchell library states that after its publication he lived in the west of England, got into trouble again, and committed suicide. There is a water-colour view of Sydney by him in the William Dixson gallery at the Mitchell library, and a "Panoramic View", 1825, of Hobart, was engraved by G. Scharf. Probably this date should be 1822 or 1823.
Sir W. Dixson, Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. V, p. 242; practically this is the only source of information about Lycett apart from references on pp. 291 and 823 in vol. X, Historical Records of Australia, ser. I; W. Moore, The Story of Australian Art; J. A. Ferguson, Bibliography of Australia.
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LYNCH, ARTHUR ALFRED (1861-1934),philosophical and miscellaneous writer, |
was born at Smythesdale near Ballarat, Victoria, in 1861. He never used his second name. His father, a civil engineer who had fought at the Eureka Stockade, was Irish, his mother was Scotch. He was educated at Grenville College, Ballarat, and the university of Melbourne, where he took the degrees of B.A. in 1885 and M.A. in 1887. He also qualified as a civil engineer and practised this profession for a short period in Melbourne. About 1890 he went to Berlin, studied scientific subjects and psychology, and going on to London took up journalism. In 1892 he contested Galway as a Parnellite candidate but was defeated. In 1899 he was Paris correspondent for a London daily paper and, his sympathy being with the Boers in the war, he decided to go to South Africa to see events close at hand. He went as a war correspondent, and making his way to Pretoria met General Botha, decided to throw in his lot with the Boers, and organized a troop of Irishmen, Cape colonists and others, whose sympathies were opposed to the British. He was given the rank of colonel and saw much active service. From South Africa Lynch went to the United States, and returning to Paris, stood for Galway in November 1901 as a nationalist candidate and was elected in his absence. On going to London he was arrested, held in gaol for eight months, tried for treason before three judges, and on 23 January 1903 was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. This sentence was immediately commuted to penal servitude for life, and a year later Lynch was released on licence by the Balfour government. In July 1907 he was given a free pardon, and in 1909 was elected a member of the house of commons for West Clare, Ireland. He held this seat until 1918, and during the war did good service for the British government. In his autobiography he claims that he was one of the earliest to fight for unity of command. He was given the rank of colonel and endeavoured to enlist men in Ireland for the allied cause without success. After losing his seat in 1918 Lynch, who had qualified as a physician many years before, practised in London at Haverstock Hill. He died in London on 25 March 1934. He married in 1895 Annie daughter of the Rev. John D. Powell, a marriage that "never lost its happiness" (My Life Story, p. 85). He had no children.
Lynch wrote and published a large number of books ranging from poetry to an attempt to refute Einstein's theory of Relativity. His verse was clever and satirically Byronic, and his essays and studies show much reading and acuteness of mind. E. Morris Miller, himself a professor of philosophy, mentions Lynch's "high reputation as a critical and philosophical writer especially for his contributions to psychology and ethics" (Australian Literature, p. 273). His book on Relativity can be read only by people with the necessary mathematical equipment, but Lynch rated it as one of his best pieces of work. His publications include Modern Authors (1891), Approaches the Poor Scholar's Quest of a Mecca (1892), A Koran of Love (1894), Our Poets (1894), Religio Athletae (1895), Human Documents (1896), Prince Azreel (1911), Psychology; A New System, 2 vols. (1912), Purpose and Evolution (1913), Sonnets of the Banner and the Star (1914), Ireland: Vital Hour (1915), Poppy Meadows, Roman Philosophique (1915), La Nouvelle Ethique (1917), L'Evolution dons ses Rapports avec l'ethique (1917), Moments of Genius (1919), The Immortal Caravel (1920), Moods of Life (1921), O'Rourke the Great (1921), Ethics, an Exposition of Principles (1922), Principles of Psychology (1923), Seraph Wings (1923), My Life Story (1924), Science, Leading and Misleading (1927), The Rosy Fingers (1929), The Case Against Einstein (1932). Some of these volumes are difficult to procure, and it was not possible to consult all of them.
Lynch was an able writer with an acute, honest and unusual mind, but he was a little like the Irish immigrant who asked whether there was a government in this country "because if so I am against it". There was also a touch of Don Quixote in him; but if in tilting against windmills he was sometimes unhorsed, he bore no malice against anyone. He more than once in his writings refers to his love for his native country, but there is little or no trace of his early environment in his work. He would probably have had a higher standing had he specialized in one direction.
My Life Story; The Times, 26 March 1934; The Bulletin, 4 February 1904; Calendar of the University of Melbourne, 1888.
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LYNE, SIR WILLIAM JOHN (1844-1913),premier of New South Wales and federal minister, |
eldest son of John Lyne, for some time a member of the Tasmanian house of assembly, and his wife, Lilias Cross Carmichael, daughter of James Hume of Edinburgh, was born at Apslawn, Tasmania, on 6 April 1844. He was educated at Horton College, Ross, Tasmania, and subsequently by a tutor, the Rev. H. P. Kane. He left Tasmania when he was 20 to take up land in northern Queensland, but finding the climate did not suit him, returned to Tasmania a year later. He became council clerk at Glamorgan and lived there for 10 years, but left for the mainland again in 1875 and took up land at Cumberoona near Albury, New South Wales. In 1880 he was elected a member of the legislative assembly for Hume, and remained the representative of that district in the New South Wales parliament and in the federal house of representatives until a few weeks before his death. In 1885 he came into the first Dibbs (q.v.) ministry as secretary for public works. Dibbs resigned a few weeks later but Lyne was given the same portfolio in the P. A. Jennings (q.v.) ministry formed in February 1886. This cabinet lasted less than a year, but when Dibbs formed his second ministry in January 1889 Lyne was made secretary for lands. He was out of office again seven weeks later, the average life of a cabinet at this period was about eight months, but Lyne was at last able to settle down as a minister in October 1891, when he became minister for public works in the third Dibbs ministry which lasted until August 1894. Lyne was a strong protectionist and fought hard for a high tariff, but the free-trade party was still very strong in New South Wales, and the G. H. Reid (q.v.) ministry which now came into power remained in office until September 1899. It might indeed have lasted until the coming of federation, and there was a feeling that whoever might then be premier of the mother colony would be asked to form the first cabinet. Reid, however, had entrusted J. C. Neild with a preparation of a report upon old age pensions, and had promised the leader of the Labour party that he would give no payment for this without the sanction of parliament. Finding that the work was much greater than he expected, Neild had asked for and obtained an advance in anticipation of a vote. Lyne, by a clever amendment of a vote of want of confidence, made it practically impossible for the Labour party to support Reid. Thus Lyne who had been a consistent opponent of federation held the coveted position of premier of New South Wales at the dawn of the Commonwealth. It is true that Lyne had been one of the representatives of New South Wales at the 1897 convention and sat on the finance committee, but he did not have an important influence on the debates. When the campaign began before the referendum of 1898 Lyne declared himself against the bill, and at the second referendum held in 1899 he was the only New South Wales convention representative who was still dissatisfied with the amended bill. Reid after some vacillation had, however, declared himself whole-heartedly on the side of federation, and the referendum showed a substantial majority on the "Yes" side.
B. R. Wise, in his The Making of the Australian Commonwealth, states that when Lyne became leader of the opposition he assured Barton (q.v.) that he would not be a competitor for the distinction of prime minister of the Commonwealth, and that the governor-general, Lord Hopetoun (q.v.), had been informed of this arrangement. This would account for Lyne as premier of New South Wales being asked as a matter of courtesy to form a government. But the general public knew nothing of this, and there was a general gasp of astonishment when the offer became known, and it was realized that men like Barton and Deakin (q.v.) who had led the movement had been passed over. Lyne attempted to form a ministry, and if Deakin had accepted the position offered to him, might have succeeded. But Deakin was loyal to Barton, and Lyne could only recommend that Barton should be sent for. Lyne became minister for home affairs in his cabinet on 1 January 1901. He held this position until Kingston left the cabinet, and became minister for trade and customs in his stead on 7 August 1903. He retained this position when Deakin became prime minister towards the end of September. The general election held in December 1903 resulted in the return of three nearly equal parties, and Deakin was forced to resign in April 1904 but came back into power in July 1905 with Lyne in his old position.
In April 1907 Lyne accompanied Deakin to the colonial conference and endeavoured to persuade the English politicians that they were foolish in clinging to their policy of free trade. Some of his speeches were scarcely tactful or reasonable, but he showed prescience in his statement that it is "a peculiarity of the British race that it rarely, if ever, foresees, or is found prepared to meet, those greater emergencies which periodically mark the record of every nation in history. With characteristic confidence, it ignores the most potent warnings, trusting to blunder through somehow or other".
Deakin and Lyne returned to Australia in June, and when Sir John Forrest resigned his position as treasurer at the end of July 1907, Lyne succeeded him. In November 1908 the Labour party withdrew its support from Deakin, and Fisher (q.v.) succeeded him and held office until June 1909 when Deakin and Joseph Cook joined forces and formed the so-called "Fusion" government. Lyne's omission from this government broke his friendship with Deakin. His bitter denunciations of his one-time friend continued during the 11 months the ministry lasted. However personal the attacks might be Deakin never replied. The Labour party came in with a large majority in April 1910 and Lyne was not in office again. He died on 3 August 1913. He was twice married, and was survived by one son and three daughters of the first marriage and by Lady Lyne and her daughter. He had been created K.C.M.G. in 1900.
Lyne was more of a politician than a statesman, always inclined to take a somewhat narrow view of politics. He did some good work when premier of New South Wales by putting through the early closing bill, the industrial arbitration bill, and bringing in graduated death duties; but even these measures were part of his bargain with the Labour party. He was tall and vigorous, in his younger days a typical Australian bushman. He knew every one in his electorate and was a good friend to all. He was bluff and frank and it was said of him that he was a man whose hand went instinctively into his pocket when any appeal was made to him. In parliament he was courageous and a vigorous administrator. Scarcely an orator he was a good tactician, and though overshadowed by greater men like Barton, Reid and Deakin, his views had much influence in his time. In his early political life he was a great advocate of irrigation, and in federal politics he had much to do with the shaping of the policy of protection eventually adopted by the Commonwealth.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 August 1913; B. R. Wise, The Making of the Australian Commonwealth; H. G. Turner, First Decade of the Australian Commonwealth; W. Murdoch, Alfred Deakin; Sir George Reid, My Reminiscences; H. V. Evatt, Australian Labour Leader.
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LYONS, JOSEPH ALOYSIUS (1879-1939),prime minister of Australia, |
was born at Circular Head near Stanley, Tasmania, on 15 September 1879. His father, Michael Lyons, was a successful farmer who afterwards engaged in a butchery and bakery business, but lost this on account of bad health, and subsequently was forced to work as a labourer. His mother, a woman of courage and endurance, did much to keep the family of eight children together, but Joseph had to begin work at an early age. By the time he was 12 he had been an errand boy in a store, a boy in a newspaper office, and had done scrub-cutting and farm work. Then two aunts at Stanley found him a home and encouraged him in his work at the local state school. By the time he was 17 he had qualified as a teacher in the education department, and some years later he resumed his studies at the Philip Smith Teachers' Training College, Hobart. As a teacher in the education department he advocated educational reforms, and became sufficiently prominent to be the subject of a debate in the Tasmanian parliament. In 1909 he resigned from the department to become a candidate in the Labour interest for Wilmot, and was elected to the Tasmanian house of assembly. There he continued his interest in educational questions, and was able to do much to restore peace in the teaching service. He also fought successfully for the widening of educational facilities and the establishment of high schools in Tasmania. In April 1914 he became treasurer, minister for railways and for education in the J. Earle (q.v.) ministry. This ministry lasted for a few days over two years, including the beginning of the 1914-18 war, and Lyons as treasurer showed ability in managing the finances of the state, and helping to keep industry going until 15 April 1916 when the ministry was defeated. He had opposed conscription, and when Earle was lost to the party on this issue Lyons was elected leader and was in opposition until 25 October 1923, when he became premier, treasurer and minister for railways. He had a party of 12 in a house of 30, there was a very large accumulated deficit, and the task of restoring the finances appeared to be almost hopeless. Lyons pursued a policy of caution and economy, and two years later was able to show a surplus. He was then returned at the head of a party of 16, the first time Labour had had a clear majority in a Tasmanian parliament. Lyons remained in office until 15 June 1928, having passed useful legislation for the encouragement of mining, and the wood-pulp and paper and other industries. Acts were also passed authorizing advances to British settlers, compensation to employees contracting occupational diseases, and the provision of retiring and death allowances to public servants. In June 1928 the ministry was defeated and went out of office. In 1929 at the request of the leader of the federal Labour party, J. H. Scullin, Lyons stood for the Wilmot seat in the house of representatives and was elected. On 22 October 1929 he became postmaster-general and minister for works and railways in the Scullin government, and in the following year as acting-treasurer, succeeded in successfully floating a £23,000,000 conversion loan in spite of the depression then almost at its worst in Australia. On January 1931 Lyons resigned from the cabinet as a protest against the proposed return of E. G. Theodore to the position of treasurer. Theodore was in favour of the Gibbons resolution, which if carried out, Lyons considered, would have the effect of bringing in inflation. Furthermore Theodore had resigned in the beginning of the previous July on account of the finding of the royal commission on the Mungana leases, and it was felt that Theodore should not again take office until he had succeeded in clearing himself. Another colleague, J. E. Fenton, also resigned, and with a handful of followers allied themselves with the opposition and formed the United Australia party. J. G. Latham, the leader of the Nationalist party, stood aside and Lyons was elected leader of the opposition. At the election held in November 1931 the Labour party was defeated, and Lyons formed a government taking the positions of prime minister and treasurer.
Australia was still suffering from it world-wide depression when the Lyons government took office. Generally a policy of sound finance was followed, the chief problem being the reduction of unemployment. At the 1934 election the party came back with a reduced following, but a coalition was made with the Country party and Lyons continued to be prime minister and treasurer. In 1935 he visited England to attend the silver jubilee celebration of George V, and in October of that year he handed over the treasurership to R. G. Casey. The 1937 election again gave his government a majority, and though the depression gradually passed away, fresh problems arose in connexion with the defence of Australia. In 1937 for all practical purposes Australia was defenceless, but the unsettled state of Europe demanded a great extension in land, sea and air forces, in a country which had been accustomed to relying almost completely on England for its defence. Lyons did not spare himself though he realized that his health was suffering. He was contemplating taking a rest from office for a period, when he died at Sydney from heart failure after a short illness, on 7 April 1939. He married in 1915 Enid Muriel Burnell, a woman of great ability and distinction, who was created G.B.E. in 1937. Dame Enid Lyons survived her husband with five sons and six daughters. Lyons was made a member of the privy council in 1932, and a companion of honour in 1936. He was given the honorary degree of LL.D. by Cambridge university in 1937.
Lyons was essentially a modest man, dependable and human. A sincere Roman Catholic, a lover of his country, his heart was with the less fortunate members of the community, and his one regret in his political life was that the reasons for his break with the Labour party could not be properly appreciated by his former supporters. When he was first made prime minister, many people felt that the reins had only temporarily been handed to a sound and honest man who might guide the country through a difficult period. But it was found that he was more than that. To his honesty was added a native shrewdness and tactfulness, a richness in common sense that made him unspoiled by power, a capacity for inspiring confidence in business circles, and a personality that commanded loyalty both in the cabinet and in the party. He was prime minister continuously for seven years, three months and one day; a record only exceeded by W. M. Hughes whose term was 12 days longer.
The Argus, Melbourne, 8 April 1939; The Age, Melbourne, 8 April 1939; The Herald, Melbourne, 8 April 1939; The Examiner, Launceston, 10 April 1939; The Mercury, Hobart, 10 April 1939; Parliamentary Handbook for the Commonwealth, 1936; Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, 1929-38.
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LYSTER, WILLIAM SAURIN (1828-1880),impresario, |
son of Chaworth Lyster, a captain in the army, was born in Dublin on 21 March 1828. He was related to William Saurin, attorney-general for Ireland, and was partly of French extraction. At the age of 13 Lyster after an illness was sent on a voyage round the world and visited Sydney and Melbourne in 1842. After his return to England he went to India, intending to become a planter, but, the climate not suiting him, he again returned to England. In 1847 he was in South Africa and fought in the Kaffir war, and a year later was in the United States where he tried his fortunes as an actor with little success. In 1855 he was a member of General Walker's expedition to Nicaragua with the rank of captain. About two years later he formed an opera company which included Madame Lucy Escott, Henry Squires, and Miss Georgia Hodson whom he married. This company had some success in the western states of America, and in 1861 Lyster brought it to Australia. For about seven years it gave excellent performances of the operas of the best Italian, German, French and English composers, including Don Giovanni in 1861, and the Huguenots in 1862. Other companies were brought out in later years, and at times comic opera was alternated with grand opera. Though a high standard was kept the best operas did not pay; Lohengrin in 1877 and Tannhauser in 1878, though the company included a distinguished singer, Antoinetta Link, were box office failures. Lyster, however, made the lighter operas bear the cost of others which were artistic successes only. Among other singers brought out by Lyster were Signor Paladini, Madame Fanny Simonsen and the Australian tenor, Armes Beaumont. Among concert artists introduced to Australia were Arabella Goddard and Henry Ketten, players of the piano, and Levy, a well-known English cornet player of the period. Lyster's companies toured the principal cities of Australia and New Zealand, but for the last seven years of his life he made the opera house, Melbourne, his headquarters. Though most renowned for his productions of operas, he was interested also in the drama, and seasons were played at the opera house by the distinguished actress Madame Ristori, and by good comedy companies. Lyster fell into bad health about 1877 and never fully recovered. He died at Melbourne on 27 November 1880.
Lyster was not a musician but his singers were well-chosen. He was tactful and just, paid his artists well, and was generally an excellent business man. He did a real service to Australia by introducing it to much good music, and set a standard which has seldom since been surpassed.
The Argus, Melbourne, 29 November 1880; The Age, Melbourne, 29 November 1880; P. Mennell, The Dictionary of Australasian Biography; The Cyclopedia of Victoria, vol. II.
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