294 ADELAIDE AND VICINITY sir S. Davenport promotion of the Jubilee Exhibition in Adelaide. To the furtherance of its useful objects and aims he generously gave his valuable assistance to the Executive Committee, of which he was a member. For a long time past the early horticultural knowledoe which he gained from his travels in Southern Europe has been turned by .Sir Samuel to a good account in South Australia, where he has large vineyards, fruit orchards, and olive groves cultivated on scientific lines. Sir Samuel is a member of the directorates of several important local companies, including the influential South Australian Company. Of recent years he has led a quiet life, having kept aloof from public affairs. Sir Samuel Davenport's contributions to the general advancement and development of South Australia can be estimated from the numerous forms of services he has rendered to it. His political reputation, however, is apt to suffer from the more conspicuous and appreciable success that has crowned his labors as the representative of the Province at the several Exhibitions with which ihe was officially concerned. But his career in Parliament was as full of merit as it was prolific of useful issues. His desire to help any good ]iublic cause as best he could was ever a distinguishing trait in his character, which always elicited the esteem of those who recognised the worthiness of his aims. Although now in his old age, his countenance bears the honorable impress of the rough and hard experience of early days spent in arduous toil in the bush. That rugged mask, as his numerous friends know well, may be easily and quickly illuminated with geniality and intelligence, leading characteristics of the possessor being generosity of heart combined with culture and much refinement of mind. The late Hon. B. T. Finniss. THE last to die of that splendid band of civil officers appointed in England to found the Province of South Australia was Mr. Finniss. He reached these shores months before the first Governor, and saw the country as an unexplored wilderness. Providence, kinder than man, permitted him to reside for upwards of 57 years among the community to which he devoted his best mental and bodily vigor, and to see the Province ri.se from the unknown to that high stage of development which it attained in the last decade of the nineteenth century. Boyle Travers Finniss was born at sea off the Cape of Good Hope on August 18. 1807, and was educated first in Greenwich, and then at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. Here he laid the foundation for an able military career, till on October 24, 1835, he sold out of the army. Under the Act providing for the foundation of this Province, the Colonising Commissioners appointed Mr. Finni.ss an assistant surveyor at /lOO a year on the staff placed at the di.sposal of Colonel Light, the Surveyor-General. In March, 1836, he sailed in the Cygnet for South Australia, and began his long connection with responsible affairs in .South Australia. He assisted Colonel Light, of whom he was a cherished friend, in surveying Rapid Bay, and in choosing a site on the Torrens for the capital city — Adelaide.
