with honours in 1859). Admitted to the bar in 1857, he at first followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, and became law reporter on the staff of (Sir) Henry Parkes's journal, ‘The Empire.’ He entered parliament as a liberal for the Lower Hunter in August 1859, and on the dissolution in the following year was returned for West Sydney, for which he sat from 1860 to 1862 and from 1866 to 1872. In 1860 he initiated the volunteer movement in New South Wales, being gazetted major in 1868.
Having on six occasions declined office, Windeyer became solicitor-general, under Sir James Martin [q. v.], on 16 Dec. 1870. He was elected first member for the university of Sydney on 8 Sept. 1876, and occupied this seat until his retirement from politics. He was attorney-general from 1877 to 1879. He introduced the act enabling Australian barristers to become judges, the Married Women's Property Act (1879), and the Copyright Act (1879). He originated the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society (1874), and he took a very active part in scholastic institutions and the public charities, and was chairman of the College for Women in the Sydney University, of which institution he became vice-chancellor in 1883, and chancellor in 1895.
From 1879 Windeyer was judge of the divorce and matrimonial causes court, and deputy judge of the vice-admiralty court. Great public commotion arose in New South Wales in connection with his verdicts in what are known as the ‘Mount Rennie’ and the ‘Deane’ cases, during which the judge was exposed to much adverse newspaper criticism and not a little unmerited abuse. In 1891 he was knighted. He resigned his Australian judgeship in August 1896, the New South Wales government desiring his elevation to the judicial committee of the privy council; but, in deference to the public opinion of the other colonies, Chief-justice Samuel James Way of South Australia was appointed.
At the desire of Mr. Chamberlain, secretary of state for the colonies, Windeyer consented to act as temporary judge of the supreme court of Newfoundland to try a special case of conspiracy, but he died suddenly at Bologna from paralysis of the heart on 11 Sept. 1897. Windeyer was an honorary LL.D. of Cambridge. He married, on 31 Dec. 1857, Mary Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. R. T. Bolton, vicar of Padbury, Buckinghamshire, who survived him, and by whom he left several children.
[Personal knowledge, and data supplied by Lady Windeyer and Miss Bolton. Sir Henry Parkes's Fifty Years in the Making of Australian History; Heaton's Dict. of Australian Dates; Mennell's Dict. of Australasian Biography; Burke's Colonial Gentry.]
WINDHAM. [See also Wyndham.]
WINDHAM, Sir CHARLES ASH (1810–1870), lieutenant-general, born at Felbrigg on 8 Oct. 1810, was fourth son of Admiral William Windham of Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk, and a great-nephew of William Windham [q. v.] He was educated at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and entered the Coldstream guards at the age of sixteen. His regimental commissions bore the following dates: ensign and lieutenant 30 Dec. 1826, lieutenant and captain 31 May 1833, captain and lieutenant-colonel 29 Dec. 1846. Windham accompanied the 2nd battalion of the Coldstream guards to Canada in January 1838, and served with them in that country during Papineau's rebellion, returning to England in the autumn of 1842. On 22 June 1849 he retired on half-pay.
On the outbreak of the Crimean war Windham was still on half-pay, but, having on 20 June 1854 been promoted to the rank of colonel, he was appointed assistant quartermaster-general of the 4th division of the army of the east, and accompanied his divisional commander, Lieutenant-general Sir George Cathcart [q. v.], to Constantinople and thence to the Crimea.
Windham landed with the 4th division on 14 Sept. 1854, and immediately attracted notice by his energetic performance of his duties. He was present at the battle of the Alma on 20 Sept., but the 4th division, being in reserve, was very slightly engaged. During the hazardous march of the allied armies from the valley of the Belbek to the position south of Sebastopol, Windham was sent by Cathcart to inform the senior naval officer on the Katcha station of the change of base to Balaclava, a service involving considerable risk. The 4th division was slightly engaged at the battle of Balaclava (25 Oct. 1854), occupying two of the redoubts from which the Turkish infantry had been driven. Windham highly distinguished himself at the battle of Inkerman (5 Nov. 1854), and, owing to the death of Cathcart and to the death of one brigadier of the division and the disablement of the other, he succeeded at an early period of the battle to the command of the 4th division. After the engagement he wrote the official report of the proceedings of the division during the battle.
Throughout the terrible winter of 1854 Windham exerted himself to the utmost to alleviate the sufferings of his own division
