Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/157

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DuC]
DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN BIOGRAPHY.
[Duf]

1866, his term of power being ended by his death on August 1st, 1869. The "Dry Scholarship" was founded in his honour in connection with the Tasmanian Scholarships by public subscription. Sir Richard married a daughter of George Meredith, of Cambria, Great Swan Port, who still survives.

Du Cane, Sir Charles, K.C.M.G., formerly Governor of Tasmania, son of Captain Charles Du Cane, R.N., of Braxted Park, Witham, Essex, by his marriage with Frances, second daughter of Rev. Charles Prideaux Brune, of Prideaux Place, Padstow, Cornwall, was born at Ryde, Isle of Wight, in 1825, and educated at the Charterhouse, and at Exeter College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. (fourth class in classics and mathematics) in 1847 and M.A. in 1864. Sir Charles represented Maldon in the House of Commons from 1852 to 1853, when he was unseated on petition, and North Essex from March 1857 until Dec. 1868, and was a Civil Lord of the Admiralty from 1866 to Dec. 1868, when he was appointed Governor of Tasmania, a post which he held from Jan. 1869 to March 1874, when he returned to England and was created K.C.M.G. in 1875, and appointed Chairman of the Board of Customs, a position which he filled from 1878 till his death on Feb. 25th, 1889. Sir Charles married, in June 1863, Hon. Georgiana Susan Copley, youngest daughter of Lord Lyndhurst.

Duffield, Walter, sometime Treasurer of South Australia, was member for Encounter Bay in the Legislative Assembly of that colony from 1857 to 1868 and from 1870 to 1871, and was Treasurer in the Hart Government from Oct. 1865 to March 1866, and in the Ministry of Mr. (now Judge) Boucaut, which succeeded it, from the latter date till May 1867. Mr. Duffield subsequently sat in the Legislative Council from 1873 to 1879, and died on Nov. 5th, 1882.

Duffy, Hon. Sir Charles Gavan, K.C.M.G., sometime Premier of Victoria, was born in Monaghan, Ireland, where his father was a farmer, in 1816. In his twentieth year Mr. Duffy became sub-editor of the Dublin Morning Register, and entered as a law student at King's Inn. In 1839 he became editor and proprietor of the Belfast Vindicator. He returned to Dublin in 1842, and, in conjunction with John Dillon and Thomas Davis, established the Nation. In 1844 Mr. Duffy was tried and convicted of sedition along with O'Connell; the conviction, however, was set aside on appeal by the House of Lords. In 1846 O'Connell quarrelled with the Young Ireland party, of which the Nation was the organ, and they established the Irish Confederation, of which Mr. Duffy was one of the leaders. The famine in Ireland in 1848 and the example of the Continental revolutions of that period constrained Young Ireland to the advocacy of extreme courses. An Act was passed to control the Irish press, and under its provisions Mr. Duffy, John Martin, John Mitchell, and Dr. O'Doherty, now of Queensland, were indicted for treason felony. In Mr. Duffy's case, after he had been four times successively arraigned, it was found impossible to procure a conviction, the juries disagreeing at each trial. Subsequently, in 1852, he revived the Nation, which had been suppressed, conducting it on constitutional and anti-physical force lines. He also joined in starting the Tenant League, in which the Protestants of Ulster co-operated with the Catholics of the south, and which succeeded in sending fifty members to the Parliament elected in 1852. Amongst the latter was Mr. Duffy, who was returned for New Ross, after a notable contest with Sir Thomas Redington, Under-Secretary for Ireland in the Government that had prosecuted him. He now worked in the House of Commons in association with Frederic Lucas and George Henry Moore, the founder of the independent Irish party in the House of Commons which sprang out of the Tenant League. After four trying sessions, the defection of a large section of that party induced him to resign his seat in Parliament; and in Nov. 1855 he emigrated to Australia. Mr. Duffy was received with extraordinary enthusiasm by his fellow-countrymen at the Antipodes. At a banquet in Melbourne, presided over by his subsequent opponent Mr. (afterwards Sir John) O'Shanassy, he made his famous declaration that he was still an Irish rebel to the backbone and spinal marrow. Mr. Lang, the veteran Sydney publicist, pressed him warmly to take up his abode in New South Wales, but he adhered to his decision in favour of Victoria, where property valued at £5000 was purchased

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