Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/182

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DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN BIOGRAPHY.
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Mr. Stafford again came into power, and Mr. Fitzherbert was Secretary for Crown Lands and Immigration. The Cabinet, however, only lasted till Oct 11th. In 1876 he was appointed Speaker of the House of Representatives, and in 1879 Sir George Grey made him Speaker of the Legislative Council. This latter position he held till his death, in Jan. 1891. He was created C.M.G. in 1872 and K.C.M.G. in 1877. In 1887 Sir William Fitzherbert visited England as one of the representatives of New Zealand at the Colonial Conference, and in 1890 he was elected one of the delegates of the colony to the Federation Convention at Sydney, but died before it met, on Feb. 9th, 1891.

Fitzpatrick, Michael, M.L.A., was born at Parramatta, N.S.W., on Dec. 16th, 1816, and educated at a Roman Catholic school and at the Australian College, where he entered in Jan. 1832, and carried off the highest prizes. After acting as tutor at the Normal Institution, he became a clerk in the Lands Department of New South Wales in Oct. 1837, first-class clerk in 1846, and clerk of the Executive Council in 1851. Mr. Fitzpatrick was selected as the first Under Secretary for Lands and Works in 1856, on the introduction of responsible government. When these departments were divided, he held the office of Under Secretary for Lands until 1869, when he retired on a pension. In December of that year he was returned for the district of Yass Plains, and represented the constituency in several parliaments. He first supported the Cowper-Robertson party, and afterwards voted with Sir Henry Parkes. He was Colonial Secretary in Mr. Farnell's Administration from Dec. 1877 to Dec. 1878. Mr. Fitzpatrick married, in August 1846, Theresa Anastasia, third daughter of Captain Small, Superintendent of Hyde Park Barracks. He died on Dec. 10th, 1881. Owing, as it was supposed, to his attitude on the education question, he was refused the rites of Christian burial by the Roman Catholic authorities. A great sensation was created, and ultimately on Dec. 22nd it was officially notified that the contretemps had arisen through a mistake, and a funeral service was performed over the grave.

Fitzroy, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Charles Augustus, K.C.B., K.C.M., ninth Governor of New South Wales and first Governor-General of her Majesty's Australian possessions, was the only son of Lord Charles Fitzroy by his first wife, Frances, daughter of Edward Miller-Mundy, of Shipley, Derby, and was born in 1796. Sir Charles Fitzroy's grandfather, the third Duke of Grafton, sometime Prime Minister of England, was the object of the envenomed attacks of Junius. His half-brother, Admiral Fitzroy, famous for his storm warnings, was Governor of New Zealand from 1843 to 1845. Having entered the army, Captain Fitzroy, as he was then called, was for some time Governor of Prince Edward Island, and. from 1842 to 1845 of Antigua. In 1846 he was appointed to succeed Sir George Gipps as Governor of New South Wales, and arriving in Sydney on August 2nd of that year, was sworn in on the following day. The year after his arrival in the colony a distressing accident occurred. On Dec. 7th, 1847, whilst he was driving his wife, Lady Mary Fitzroy, in the neighbourhood of Parramatta, the horses took fright, and one of the wheels struck against a tree, causing the occupants to be thrown out, Lady Mary being killed on the spot. The deceased, to whom Sir Charles Fitzroy was married on March 11th, 1820, was the eldest daughter of Charles, fourth Duke of Richmond. Shortly after his arrival Sir Charles Fitzroy avowed his entire neutrality in regard to all matters of local concern, and it was well that he did so, as the public mind was then greatly agitated on some of the most momentous questions affecting the welfare of Australia as a whole. Mr. Gladstone, when Secretary for the Colonies in the Peel Government, from 1845 to 1846, roused great bitterness by suddenly mooting the renewal, of transportation and actually constituting a new colony in the Port Curtis district of what is now Northern Queensland by the name of Northern Australia, with at view of making it a receptacle of British convictism on a large scale. The scheme, however, collapsed on Mr. Gladstone's retirement from office, and Northern Australia reverted to the jurisdiction of New South Wales in 1849. In 1847 a long-standing difficulty was settled by the concession of some sort of fixity of tenure to the squatters, In 1848 the

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