Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol II (1901).djvu/403

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Hare
391
Hargraves

Economy clubs, and to the last was actively interested in them. He died at Carlyle Mansions, Chelsea, on 6 May 1891, and was buried at Hook, near Surbiton, on 9 May. A cross, designed by Seddon, was erected over his grave. He married, first, in Dorsetshire on 7 Aug. 1837, Mary, daughter of Thomas Samson of Kingston Russell. She died on 21 Oct. 1855, and was buried in the churchyard of Brompton church. They had eight children. The eldest daughter, Marian, wife of the Rev. W. R. Andrews of Eastbourne, has written under the pseudonym of 'Christopher Hare;' the second daughter, Alice, married Professor Westlake. Hare married, secondly, on 4 April 1872, Eleanor Bowes Benson (1833-1890), second sister of Edward White Benson, archbishop of Canterbury [q. v. Suppl.], by whom he had issue Mary Eleanor (1874-1883).

Hare's energies were concentrated in an attempt to devise a system which should secure proportional representation of all classes in the United Kingdom, including minorities, in the House of Commons and other electoral assemblies. His views were set out at first in the 'Machinery of Representation' (1857, two editions), and they were afterwards more fully developed in his 'Treatise on the Election of Representatives, Parliamentary and Municipal' (1859, 1861, 1865, and 1873). A copious literature grew up for the promotion of his system, which was generally regarded as too complicated for practical working, and many societies were formed for its propagation. John Stuart Mill commended it in the second edition of 'Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform,' and Henry Fawcett, who held that in it 'lay the only remedy against the great danger of an oppression of minorities,' brought out in 1860 a pamphlet entitled ' Mr. Hare's Reform Bill simplified and explained' (Stephen, Life of Fawcett, pp. 170, 185, 451).

Hare's other works included a pamphlet in support of the relaxation of the navigation laws, published in 1826 at the request of Huskisson; 'The Development of the Wealth of India,' a reprint from 'Macmillan's Magazine,' 1861; 'Usque ad Coelum,' 'Thoughts on the Dwellings of the People,' 'Local Government in the Metropolis,' 1862; 'The Distribution of Seats in Parliament,' 1879; and 'London Municipal Reform,' 1882, which contained many papers he had previously published on that question. He contributed to Alfred Hill's volume of 'Essay's upon Educational Subjects' a paper on 'Endowments created for the Apprenticeship of Children.'

[Benchers of Inner Temple, p. 123; Times, 7 May 1891, pp. 1, 5; Athenæum, 16 May 1891, pp. 635-6 (by Leonard Courtney); Academy, 16 May 1891 (by John Westlake); A. C. Benson's family pedigree; Benson's Archbishop Benson, i. 5, 80-87, ii. 284-98, 399; private information.]

W. P. C.

HARGRAVES, EDWARD HAMMOND (1816–1891), pioneer of gold-mining in Australia, the third son of John Edward Hargraves, a lieutenant of the Sussex militia, was born at Stoke Cottage, Gosport, on 7 Oct. 1816. After schooling at Brighton and Lewes, young Hargraves sailed for Australia on a merchant vessel in 1832. Next year he sailed for Torres Straits in the Clementine in search of bêche-de-mer and tortoise-shell. The crew were stricken with yellow fever, and twenty out of twenty-seven died at Batavia, whence the survivors were conveyed to Europe. In 1834 Hargraves sailed again for Sydney, and was engaged in sheep-farming for nearly fifteen years. In July 1849 he sailed for the California gold-diggings, and was struck by the resemblance of the geological formations there to the quartz rocks on the west side of the Blue Mountains in New South Wales. Sir Paul Edmund de Strzelecki [q. v.] had discovered some gold-bearing quartz in this district as early as 1839, and five years later, in a presidential address to the Royal Geographical Society, Sir Roderick Murchison had deduced from data supplied by Strzelecki and others the fact that large auriferous deposits might be looked for in a formation such as that of the Blue Mountains. The suspicion that New South Wales would prove a rich goldfield had therefore been 'in the air' for some time, but nothing whatever had yet been achieved in the way of practical experiment, still less of realisation. Hargraves sailed from California with this object in view at the close of 1850. On 12 Feb. 1851 two men, Lister and Toms, whom he had instructed in the process of cradle-washing, discovered gold at Lewis Ponds Creek, near Bathurst, where Hargraves had predicted it. He was the first at the beginning of April 1851 to make known to the colonial secretary at Sydney, (Sir) Edward Deas Thomson [q. v.], the existence of the precious metal in large quantity. After receiving his evidence, Thomson is said to have remarked: 'If what you say is correct, Mr. Hargraves, we have got a goldfield. It will stop the emigration to California and settle the convict question.' Hargraves was temporarily appointed a commissioner of crown lands at a pound a day, and on 5 Oct. 1853, as a reward for his communication, he was granted a sum of 10,000l. by the legislative council of Sydney. In 1854 he visited England,