own. The result was the passing of the measure, afterwards known as the Strangways Act, which provided for the creation of agricultural areas, and which, for the first time in the history of South Australia, permitted the sale of Crown lands on credit. Subsequent modifications of the measure have not been in all cases improvements. In another work of not only Australasian but of Imperial importance Mr. Strangways may claim to have played a leading part. Early in 1870 a project was mooted from England for the establishment of cable communication with Australia, and special application was made to Sir James Fergusson, then Governor of South Australia, to use his influence in effectuating the idea. Sir James requested Mr. Strangways, who was still in office as Premier and Attorney-General, to take the matter up, and after careful consideration he consented to do so. The agent of the English promoters, Captain Noel Osborne, R.N., in the meantime arrived, and requested permission from the South Australian Government to make a land line from Palmerston, in the northern territory of that colony, to Brisbane, in Queensland. Mr. Strangways promised his aid, but suggested as an alternative that South Australia should herself construct a land line across the centre of the continent from Palmerston to Adelaide. Captain Osborne doubted whether this was feasible, but promised to maintain silence until Mr. Strangways had sounded his colleagues, whom he had to convert one by one to what at the first blush everybody in the colony was inclined to regard as an equally daring and impracticable feat. When the cabinet had been won over, Mr. Strangways again approached Sir James Fergusson, who was impressed with the idea that the other colonies ought to assist in a work of such importance to them all. His Excellency was just about to start on a visit to the eastern colonies, and undertook to try to get their aid. Mr. Strangways stoutly maintained that if the work was to be done at all, South Australia would have to do it alone; and the result showed the correctness of this view, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania only giving their good wishes; whilst Queensland, nettled at being left out in the cold by the route selected, intimated her strong opposition. Sir James Fergusson having telegraphed to Mr. Strangways, giving his assent to the venture being made, the latter caused a despatch to be forwarded to the Governor of Ceylon, then the nearest available point connected with Europe by cable, requesting him to send an advance telegram to the Secretary for the Colonies, informing him that the Government of South Australia had decided to recommend to Parliament the construction of the transcontinental wire from Palmerston to Adelaide. Shortly afterwards, one of the ministers having been defeated at the general election, a reconstruction of the Government became necessary, Mr. Strangways still remaining Premier. When they met Parliament they recommended the construction of the Central Australian line. A vote of want of confidence was however at once carried on other grounds, and they resigned; but the idea of the projected telegraph line had in the meantime attracted so much support that Mr. Strangways was enabled to get the needful bill passed through Parliament, and handed on his plans, which were in the main adopted, to his successors. Mr. Strangways, who was admitted a practitioner of the Supreme Court of South Australia in 1860, and was a captain in the South Australian volunteer force, and for several years Mayor of Glenelg, left the colony in Feb. 1871, and has since permanently resided in England. He married in 1861, Maria Cordelia, younger daughter of the late Henry Rudolph Wigley, Stipendary Magistrate of South Australia, and now resides on property at Shapwick, Somersetshire (of which county he is J.P.), which was purchased of the Crown by an ancestor on the dissolution of Glastonbury Abbey, and has remained in the family ever since.
Strangways, Thomas Bewes, uncle of the above, second son of late Henry Bull Strangways, of Shapwick, Somerset, J. P., and Colonel Commandant of the Polden Hill (Somerset) Local Militia, was born in 1810. Having served as ensign 71st Foot, he, in 1836, with his brother Giles Edward Strangways, accompanied Captain (afterwards Rear-Admiral) Sir John Hindmarsh in the Buffalo to found the colony of South Australia. He was present at the inauguration of the colony
442
