colony in 1857, he, with general approval, was appointed Attorney-General by Mr. La Trobe. In that office he soon won the influence which his abilities merited and gained the esteem and confidence of his strongest political opponents. The difficulties of that period, enhanced by the "gold fever," can never be appreciated by those who did not witness them. The organisation of all the branches of the Government service, in a community where no official materials existed, was almost an impossibility, and this duty devolved on a number of young men who themselves had received no official training. Their success was marvellous, and in this arduous task none took a more prominent part than Mr. Stawell. After the introduction of responsible government he continued to act as Attorney-General under Mr. Haines as Premier, having been elected as one of the members for the city of Melbourne in 1856, and in March 1857 he obtained his well-won appointment as Chief Justice of Victoria. In 1873 he took two years' leave of absence, and revisited his native land, where he was admitted a Doctor of Laws by the University of Dublin. Soon after his return he administered the Government during the absence of Sir George Bowen, and subsequently was appointed Lieut.-Governor of the Colony. From 1880 to 1886 he filled the office of Judge to the Vice-Admiralty Court. About this date also he acted as President of the Commission which passed the Judicature Acts, assimilating as far as possible, English law and practice to the circumstances of the colony. On his retirement from the bench, in 1886, he was created K.C.M.G. In 1856 he married Mary Frances Elizabeth, only daughter of W. P. Green, R.N. He died at Naples, in Italy, on March 12th, 1889.
Steel, Rev. Robert, D.D., Ph.D., is of Scotch extraction, but was born at Pontypool, Monmouthshire, in 1827. He was educated at the Ayr Academy and at the Aberdeen and Edinburgh Universities, being licensed to preach by the Free Presbytery of Irvine in 1851. He subsequently held various charges, being transferred to Halford in 1855 and to Cheltenham in 1859. He meanwhile contributed to the religious press, and was the originator and for four years one of the editors, of Meliora, a quarterly periodical of social science. In 1861 he was created Ph.D. of the University of Göttingen, and in the same year was appointed to the pastorate of the Macquarie Street church, Sydney, where he arrived in June 1862. Subsequently he took a leading part in promoting the union of the Presbyterian churches of New South Wales, and was elected Moderator of the third General Assembly in 1867. He was actively interested in the establishment of St. Andrews College, and he has been one of the General Assembly's tutors in theology. For five years he edited the Presbyterian, a weekly paper in Sydney. In 1869 he was adjudged guilty of contempt of court for having published a letter from a missionary exposing the evils of the Polynesian labour traffic, and which it turned out had reference to the proceedings of a captain who was awaiting trial for the murder of kidnapped South Sea Islanders. The Chief Justice, Sir Alfred Stephen, dissented from the decision, and Dr. Steel was the object of much popular sympathy, evidenced by addresses and presentations. He was created D.D. by Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, and in 1874 was transferred to the pastorate of St. Stephen's Church, Phillip Street, Sydney, which he still holds. In the same year Dr. Steel visited the New Hebrides, in the Dayspring, in order to see the working of the missions, in which he had always taken a deep interest, and published a book on the subject in 1880. Amongst other works, Dr. Steel is author of the following: "Doing Good, or the Christian in Walks of Usefulness"(1858); "Samuel the Prophet, and the Lessons of his Life and Times" (1860); "Lives made Sublime by Faith and Work" (1861); "Burning and Shining Lights, or Memoirs of Good Ministers of Jesus Christ" (1864); "The Christian Teacher in Sunday Schools" (1867); "The Shorter Catechism with Analyses, Illustrations, and Anecdotes" (1885); and "The Achievements of Youth" (1891). All the above were published by Messrs. Nelson & Sons, of Edinburgh. Dr. Steel, who is the son of the late James Steel and Anne Gillespie his wife, married at Huntly, Scotland, on Nov. 23rd, 1853, Miss Mary Allardyce.
Stenhouse, Nicol Drysdale, M.A., a writer of taste and a great lover of literature, was clerk to Sir William Hamilton when the latter was practising as an
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