Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/457

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DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN BIOGRAPHY.
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and resigning his seat for the South-western Province, contested the Western against the late Henry Miller, who had accepted office under Sir J. M'Culloch, and defeated him. He died at Geelong on April 14th, 1875, aged sixty-five years.

Strahan, Major Sir George Cumine, R.A., G.C.M.G., formerly Governor of Tasmania, was the son of the late Rev. W. D. Strahan, and was born in 1838. He was educated at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, and entered the Royal Artillery as lieutenant in Oct. 1857, becoming captain in 1871 and major on the retired list in 1874. Sir George was appointed in Jan. 1859 aide-de-camp to Mr. Gladstone, when Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands, and continued in the same post under Sir Henry Storks. He was Chief Secretary to the Government of Malta for some time in 1868 to 1869, Colonial Secretary and acting Governor in the Bahamas from 1868 to 1873, Administrator of the Government of Lagos in 1873, Governor of the Gold Coast from 1874 to 1876, and of the Windward Islands from 1876 to 1880, when he was appointed Governor of Tasmania, a post which he held from Dec. 7th, 1881, to Oct. 28th, 1886. He married, in 1877, Catherine, eldest daughter of R. Reade, of New York (who died in 1878), and was created C.M.G. in 1875, K.C.M.G. in 1880. He died at Bournemouth on Feb. 17th, 1887.

Strangways, Hon. Henry Bull Templer, J. P., sometime Premier of South Australia, eldest son of the late Henry Bull Strangways, J.P., of Shapwick, Somerset, was born in 1832, and emigrated to South Australia. Revisiting England, he entered at the Middle Temple in Nov. 1851, and was called to the Bar in June 1856. He returned to Adelaide in May of the following year, and was member for Encounter Bay in the Assembly from 1858 to 1862, and for West Torrens from 1863 to 1870. Mr. Strangways declined to form a government when the Hanson Ministry were in difficulties in 1859; but in the following year he took office as Attorney-General in the Reynolds Government, which lasted from May 1860 to May 1861, when it was reconstructed, and held office till the following October, Mr. Strangways, in the meantime, exchanging the post of Attorney-General for that of Minister of Lands and Immigration. In this capacity he settled the vexed question as to the ownership of the Moonta Mines on a basis which legal decisions subsequently upheld. He was always an advocate of exploration, and as a Minister supervised the fitting out of the expeditions of John McDouall Stuart and Mackinlay. The Waterhouse Ministry, which took office on the final retirement of Mr. Reynolds from the premiership, only lasted a few days, and was then reconstructed on a broader basis, Mr. Strangways being taken in in his old post of Minister of Lands and Immigration. On this occasion he held office till July 1863. In 1862 a question arose as to the appointment of a gentlemen, not a responsible minister, as a member of the Executive Council. Mr. Strangways therefore suggested to the then Governor, Sir Dominic Daly, that the Executive Council should be placed on the same basis as the Privy Council in England, and that a few colonists of eminence and position should be appointed to it, but that they should not attend meetings unless summoned, as is now the case in Victoria. This view was not adopted by the Colonial Office, but instead an intimation was given in 1863 that ministers who had served more than three years would in proper cases be allowed to retain the title of "honourable" within the colony, and Mr. Strangways himself was one of the first to whom that permission was granted. In March 1865 he was again appointed Minister of Lands in the Dutton Ministry; but owing to some dissatisfaction with their action in appointing the premier to the post of Agent-General they were ejected, after being reconstructed under Mr. (now Sir) Henry Ayers, in the following October. Mr. Strangways took a prominent part in initiating the State railway system, which has since been so enormously developed in South Australia. In 1865 he moved for the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the subject, and the report was mainly the embodiment of his views. The land question having come prominently on the tapis, successive proposals from several short-lived ministries were rejected, and in Nov. 1868 Mr. Strangways, who had been instrumental in defeating the last of these abortive projects, was called upon as Premier to develop a land policy of his

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