Sydney, sometime captain 39th Foot, was born in Sydney on Oct. 16th, 1834, and educated at the King's School, Parramatta, N.S.W. He then went to England, and entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn in Nov. 1856; and, after winning a certificate of honour in May 1859, he was called to the bar in November of the same year. Having returned to Australia, he was admitted to the New South Wales bar in 1862, and practised till 1865, when he was appointed a district judge in Queensland. This position he resigned in 1869, and returned to practise his profession in Sydney. He also went into politics, and was returned to the Assembly in 1872, in May of which year he became Solicitor-General in the first Parkes Ministry, and in November of the next year Attorney-General in succession to the late Mr. Butler. Having been nominated to the Legislative Council in 1873, he continued to hold office as Attorney-General in the Parkes Ministry until the break-up of the Government in Feb. 1875. In the previous year he had accompanied Sir Hercules Robinson, the then Governor of New South Wales, on his special mission to Fiji, in connection with the annexation of the island to the British Crown, and was knighted in Jan. 1875 in recognition of his legal services on that occasion. Sir George acted as Chairman of Committees in the Legislative Council till August 1880, when he succeeded Mr. F. B. Suttor as Minister of Justice in the third Parkes Administration, this post he resigned in Oct. 1881, on being appointed a Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, a position which he still holds. Sir George married, in 1865, Emily Janet, daughter of Hon. John Smith, M.L.C., of Llanarth, Bathurst, N.S.W.
Ireland, Hon. Richard Davies, was born in Galway in 1816, and was called to the Irish bar in 1838. He emigrated to Victoria in 1852, and was called to the local bar in the following year. His brilliant and gratuitous defence of the Ballarat rioters brought him enormous popularity, and he was elected to represent Castlemaine in the Assembly in 1857, and was appointed Solicitor-General in March 1858 in the O'Shanassy Ministry, retiring with his colleagues in Oct. 1859, when he was returned for Maryborough. He entered the Legislative Council in 1859, and joined the Heales Administration as Attorney-General in Nov. 1860, but resigned in July 1861, four months before the fall of the Ministry. When the O'Shanassy Ministry, which succeeded, came in in Nov. 1861, Mr. Ireland again became Attorney-General, retiring with his colleagues in June 1863. Mr. Ireland did not again hold office, and died in Melbourne in 1875.
Irving, Martin Howy, M.A., one of the members of the Public Service Board of Victoria, is the son of the celebrated preacher Edward Irving, founder of the "Irvingites," and Isabella (Martin) his wife, and was born in 1831. He matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford, in Nov. 1848, and became scholar of his college in the same year. He graduated B.A. in 1853, M.A. in 1856, and would doubtless have proceeded to a Fellowship but for the religious tests then imposed. He emigrated to Victoria, and was head master of Wesley College, Melbourne, till 1875, and Professor of Classics in the Melbourne University (of which he was made M.A. in 1867) for many years. When the control of the Civil Service was removed from the domain of politics and was placed in the hands of a permanent body under the title of the Public Service Board, Professor Irving was nominated one of the members (Feb. 1884). When it became necessary to elect a successor to the late Sir William Stawell as Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Professor Irving was placed in nomination by his friends, and only failed of election by a single vote.
Ives, Joshua, Mus. Bac. Cantab., Professor of Music, Adelaide University, is the son of John and Hannah Goddard Ives, and was born at Hyde, Cheshire. Professor Ives was formerly Lecturer on Harmony and Musical Composition at the Glasgow Athenæum. In 1885, when the University of Adelaide set the example to the rest of Australia in founding a chair of music, Professor Ives was appointed its first occupant, arriving in Adelaide in March 1885. At first the chair was supported by public subscription, but so great has been its success that it is now self-supporting. Professor Ives was married at Glasgow in 1879 to Miss Janet Boyd.
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