Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/402

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DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN BIOGRAPHY.
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surviving daughter of the late Colonel Shadforth, of the 57th Regiment.

Rennie, Edward Alexander, J.P., Auditor-General of New South Wales, is the only son of the late James Rennie, M.A., formerly Professor of Zoology at King's College, London, and author of "Insect Architecture" and many popular works on natural history. Mr. Rennie was born in London on Oct. 16th, 1820, and reached Sydney in Feb. 1840. In 1846 he joined the Audit Office, was appointed chief clerk in Jan. 1856, and Auditor-General of New South Wales in July 1883. He was married at Sydney on Sept. 25th, 1850; and his eldest son, who is Professor of Chemistry in the university of Adelaide, was the first Australian who took the degree of D.Sc. in London University.

Rentoul, Rev. J. Laurence, M.A., D.D., is the fourth son of the Rev. James B. Rentoul, D.D., and was born in 1846 at Garvagh, Londonderry, Ireland. He graduated in 1868, and was ordained in 1872 as Minister of St. George's Presbyterian Church, Southport, Lancashire. In 1879 he went to Victoria as pastor of St. George's, East St. Kilda. In 1888 he was appointed to the Professorship of Sacred Languages and Christian Philosophy in the Theological Hall in connection with Ormond College. At an early age Professor Rentoul received the honorary degree of D.D. from the Theological Faculty of Ireland. In 1878 he was married to a daughter of the late D. T. Rattray of Chili, South America, and Southport, Lancashire.

Renwick, Hon. Arthur, M.L.C., B.A., M.D., F.R.C.S., was born in Sydney, and educated at the University of that city, where he graduated B.A. in 1857, being one of the first three on whom the degree was conferred. Having embraced the medical profession, he studied at Edinburgh, and was admitted L.R.C.S. in 1860, and F.R.C.S. in 1861, in which year he received the degree of M.D. from Edinburgh University. He was for some time member for East Sydney and Redfern in the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales; but was defeated for the former constituency in 1882, and for the latter in 1887, in December of which year he was called to the Legislative Council. Dr. Renwick was Secretary for Mines in the Parkes Government from Oct. 1881 to Jan. 1883; and Minister of Public Instruction in that of Sir Patrick Jennings from Feb. 1886 to Jan. 1887. He was Executive Commissioner for New South Wales at the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880, Vice-President of the New South Wales Commission for the Amsterdam Exhibition in 1883, President of that for the Adelaide Jubilee Exhibition of 1887, and in 1892 was appointed Executive Commissioner for New South Wales at Chicago. Dr. Renwick was appointed a Fellow of the Senate of Sydney University in 1872, and Vice-Chancellor in 1889; a member of the Medical Board of New South Wales in 1873; and President of the State Children's Belief Department in 1881. He is President of the Benevolent Society of New South Wales, and President and Honorary Consulting Physician to the Sydney Hospital, and to the Institution for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind. In 1877 Dr. Renwick made a donation of £1000 to the University of Sydney, "to found a Scholarship for Natural Science with especial reference to Comparative Anatomy when a School of Medicine shall have been established." He also gave £100 for the purchase of Leipeius' "Antiquities of Egypt and Æthiopia."

Revans, Samuel, father of the New Zealand press, was a native of England. and was brought up to the printing trade. In 1833 he went out to Montreal, Canada, to assist the late Mr. Henry Samuel Chapman (q.v.) in starting the first daily newspaper, the Daily Advertiser, published in British North America. He subsequently became Mr. Chapman's partner, and it was probably at his instigation that he identified himself with the Edward Gibbon Wakefield schemes for the colonisation of New Zealand. At any rate when in Sept. 1839 a provincial constitution was drawn up in London for the Port Nicholson (Wellington) settlement, which the New Zealand Company were founding under Colonel Wakefield, Mr. Revans was appointed secretary to the executive committee nominated to control the inception of the settlement. At Port Nicholson he arrived by the Adelaide in Jan. 1840, and his signature is appended to all the official documents issued by the committee before its dissolution after the arrival of Governor

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