Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/312

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DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN BIOGRAPHY.
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absent on leave, Mr. McDougall filled the chair of the Legislative Council. He married in July 1846 Catherine Maria, daughter of Major D'Arcy, of the 39th Regiment.

McEncroe, Ven. Archdeacon John, was born at Rathsalla, near Cashel, in Tipperary, on Dec. 26th, 1795. He entered St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, in 1814, and was ordained priest in 1819. In 1822 he went to America, and was engaged in missionary work under Bishop England. He distinguished himself by his opposition to the institution of slavery at a time when to do so meant liability to personal violence. Broken in health he returned to Ireland in 1829, and after an interval of repose was offered an American bishopric which became vacant. This he refused, and emigrated in 1832 to New South Wales, where he officiated as Colonial Chaplain, and was placed in charge of St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, Sydney, subsequently becoming dean, and later on archdeacon. He founded the Sydney Freeman's Journal, and was a regular contributor to its columns. When he returned from revisiting Ireland in 1859, he brought back with him the Rev. Dr. Forrest, as first rector of St. John's Roman Catholic College, affiliated to the University of Sydney. In 1849, when an attempt was made by the Home Government to reintroduce convicts, Archdeacon McEncroe, at a great public meeting held in Sydney, declared that rather than submit to such treatment the colonists would follow the example of the United States and proclaim their independence. Archdeacon McEncroe died on August 22nd, 1868.

McFarland, His Honour Alfred, ex-judge of the Southern District Courts, New South Wales, was born on April 24th, 1824, in county Londonderry, in Ireland. His father was a member of one of the earliest firms of linen-bleachers in that part of the North. He himself was educated at Foyle College and Belfast College, and became a student of law at King's Inn, Dublin, in 1843. In 1845 he studied temporarily at Lincoln's Inn, London, and was called to the Irish Bar in Easter term, 1847. He then joined the North-east Circuit, and practised in the superior courts at Dublin. Meantime he published a book upon "Principles and Practice of Pleading in Equity," which in 1857 procured his first judicial appointment as judge of the principal civil and criminal courts of Western Australia, a post which he filled till March 1861, when he resigned and went to New South Wales, where on May 30th he was appointed an acting district court judge. He was made Chief Commissioner of Insolvent Estates in July of the same year, and in 1865 became one of the Metropolitan District Court judges and Chairman of Quarter Sessions, a position which he exchanged in Nov. 1868 for his late office of sole judge of the Southern District Courts and Courts of Quarter Sessions. He retired in 1892. In the meantime he did much good work in consolidating the Insolvency, District Court, and Mining Statutes. He was also the author of a successful little work descriptive of the climate, soil, early history, products, capabilities, sports, and pastimes of the districts of Illawarra and Manaro, in New South Wales.

MacFarland, John Henry, M.A., Master of Ormond College, Melbourne University, was born at Omagh co. Tyrone, on April 19th, 1851, and educated at the Royal Academical Institution, Belfast, graduating as senior scholar in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in the Queen's University in Ireland, and then proceeding to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was elected a foundation scholar. Having graduated as a wrangler in 1876, he was appointed an assistant-master at Repton School, a post which he held until he was elected to the position he now occupies of Master of Ormond College, Melbourne University.

M‘Gowan, Samuel Walker, formerly Deputy Postmaster-General, Victoria, was the son of Samuel M‘Gowan of Kingston, Ontario, Canada who had emigrated from the north of Ireland, and was born on Jan. 4th, 1829. He was originally intended for the profession of the law, but ultimately studied Telegraphy under the renowned Professor Morse. After being in the service of more than one telegraphic company in Canada and the States, Mr. M‘Gowan in 1853 arrived in Melbourne with the ambitious project of establishing working lines of telegraph to Sydney and Adelaide, as well as to the local centres of population in Victoria. Mr. M‘Gowan brought with him an expert

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