Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/144

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DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN BIOGRAPHY.
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sented him with £2000 for the purchase of plate, which, after a long correspondence with Downing Street, the Colonial Office authorities ultimately permitted him to accept, contrary to the usual precedent. Sir William deserves credit for the care which characterised his initiation of responsible government in New South Wales and for the conscientiousness which marked his nominations to the Upper Chamber when the bicameral system was instituted. In 1857, when the administration of Norfolk Island was vested in the Governor of New South Wales, he drew up an excellent code of government for the descendants of the mutineers of the Bounty. He also gave good advice to Governor Gore Browne, of New Zealand, which, had it been followed, might have prevented the war commenced at Waitara. Writing on the subject to Sir Roderick Murchison in 1860, he gave it as his opinion that the "treatment of the natives by the whites had been such as would naturally induce the conduct which was designated rebellion," and added, "To tell you the truth, I believe it was intended that such should be the result." In New South Wales, even after the inauguration of responsible government, he allowed himself no inconsiderable discretion in dealing with the advice tendered to him by his Ministers. In 1858 he would not allow the Upper House to be "swamped". When urged by Mr. Cowper, as Mr. Rusden narrates, to dissolve the Legislative Assembly in 1860 and to allow the public payments to be met by payments unwarranted by law, he declared that after a certain date he would sanction no disbursements unauthorised by regular Appropriation Acts. When, after correspondence about the issue of a Crown grant (promised long before by a previous Governor), he received instructions to issue it, and Mr. Cowper (then Colonial Secretary in the Robertson Ministry) refused to affix the public seal, the resolute Governor desired the Secretary to hand the seal to him, and with his own hand sealed the grant The Ministry resigned in consequence, but immediately reconstructed themselves under Cowper; and a vote of censure on the Governor mooted in the Assembly after his departure to Madras was shelved by the passing of the previous question. Sir William Denison's "Varieties of Viceregal Life" was published in London in 1870.

Denniston, His Honour John Edward, Puisne Judge, New Zealand, is the eldest son of Thomas Denniston, of Invercargill, N.Z., by his marriage with Helen French, daughter of the late Gabriel Walker, of Glasgow. He was born in 1845 and educated at Greenock Academy, Blair Lodge, and at Glasgow University Returning to New Zealand, he was admitted to the Bar there in 1874, and appointed a Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of that colony in Feb. 1889. He married in 1877 Mary Helen, daughter of the late Hon. John Bathgate, M.L.C.

De Quincey, Lieut.-Col. Paul Frederick, son of Thomas de Quincey, the great English writer, was born at Grasmere, Westmoreland, on Nov. 26th, 1828, and was educated at the High School, Edinburgh, and at the Lasswade School, near that city. He entered the army in 1845 as ensign in the 70th Regiment, and served with distinction in India from 1846 to 1860, when, having become successively captain and major of brigade on the permanent staff of the Bengal Presidency, he was ordered with his old regiment, which he had rejoined after serving with several others, for active service in New Zealand. Colonel de Quincey arrived in that colony in May 1861, served there for a time, commanded the 1st Company Transport Corps, and then rejoined his regiment; but seeing no prospect of returning to India without sacrificing his position, sold out, and turned his attention to farming, with the unsatisfactory results usually experienced by military men. In 1863, the war breaking out, and the Auckland Militia being called out for active service, he was appointed to the command of the left wing of the 3rd Battalion Artillery, with a captain's commission and without pay, and embodied it on those terms. Major-General Galloway, under whom he had served in India, on being appointed to the command of the colonial forces selected Captain de Quincey as his military secretary, to which appointment he was gazetted with the rank of major, and soon afterwards he was gazetted to a lieutenant-colonelcy. On General Galloway leaving the colony in 1864, he was succeeded in the command by Colonel

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