Notable South Australians/William Novice
William Novice,
IS a native of London, where he was born in 1831. He arrived in South Australia in 1862, and entered into pastoral and farming pursuits at Booborowie, where he was fairly successful, in spite of the difficulties which beset the husbandman in those primitive times. Possessed of a logical mind and inventive talent, Mr. Novice has endeavoured at various times to interest the Government and capitalists in his numerous discoveries and inventions, but up to the present has received small encouragement. He has been a voluminous contributor to the press, and his most notable productions are "The Condition of the Working Classes in the Bush;" "The Burra and its Peculiarities;" "Farming Jumbles;" "Farming Colloquies," and many others. Who knows that the suggestions which these contained may not have led to the establishment of the Bushmen's Club, or even of the now flourishing Agricultural College? Mr. Novice considers that in the latter the core of South Australia's future stability is forming. He is now devoting his leisure to experiments with the steam-engine, and is writing up the theory to expose with other errors that "air pressure" is only attraction, and that gravity, or weight, will be only density in future scientific teachings.