Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/477

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DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN BIOGRAPHY.
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children in the orphan schools, all the inmates of which must be instructed in the faith and doctrines of the Church of England. Against this last prohibition Father Therry protested, and was, on one occasion, suspended from his clerical office for his pertinacity, and only reinstated after an appeal to the Imperial authorities. Father Therry, who laid the foundation-stone of St. Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, a year after his arrival, sent his coadjutor to Van Diemen's Land, and attended singly to the spiritual needs of the 10,000 Catholics of the colony for a period of five years, when Father McEncroe arrived. He did an excellent work amongst the convicts, and may be regarded as the apostle of Catholicism in Australia. On the arrival of the late Archbishop Ullathorne in Sydney in 1833, Father Therry became his subordinate. Subsequently he was stationed in Tasmania. Father Therry died at Balmain, Sydney, on May 25th, 1864.

Therry, Sir Roger, Knt., was born in Ireland on April 22nd, 1800, and was admitted to the Irish bar in 1824. He was appointed Commissioner of the Court of Requests for New South Wales in Nov. 1829; a magistrate in April 1830, and Attorney-General of the colony in May 1841 as locum tenens during the absence of Mr. Plunkett. In 1843, after a sharp contest with Mr. (afterwards Sir) Charles Cowper, he was returned for Camden to the old Legislative Council. He subsequently acted as Crown Prosecutor. In Jan. 1845 he succeeded the late Judge Jeffcott as Resident Judge at Port Phillip. In Feb. 1846 he was in turn succeeded by Mr. (afterwards Sir) William à Becket, and was gazetted a Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, and primary Judge in Equity. In 1859 he retired from the Bench, and went to live in England, where he died on May 17th, 1874, Lady Therry dying on the 27th of the same month. Whilst resident in England, after quitting Australia, Sir Roger published "Reminiscences of Thirty Years' Residence in New South Wales," which, containing as it did much curious data regarding private families and persons, created considerable stir, and ultimately the first edition was withdrawn from circulation and an expurgated version issued (1863). Sir Roger Therry was a Roman Catholic, and in his early career in New South Wales warmly vindicated the claims of his co-religionists to the freedom of conscience and liberty of worship which was for a long time denied them. In 1833 he defended six assigned servants, who were charged with insubordination on the estate of Major Mudie of the Hunter river. The men were convicted and executed, but an official inquiry instigated by Mr. Therry resulted in Major Mudie's name being removed from the commission of the peace. Two years later Mr. Therry was a candidate for the office of Chairman of Quarter Sessions, and was defeated by Mr. Riddell as the result of the animus which he had aroused amongst the magistrates by his action in the Castle-Forbes affair, as it was called. Before he left Ireland for Australia, Sir Roger was associated with O'Connell's Catholic emancipation agitation. He was also acquainted with the great statesman George Canning, and after the latter's death he edited the volumes of his speeches, which were published in London in 1828. Two years prior to this he had published "A Letter to the Right Hon. George Canning on the Present State of the Catholic Question." Sir Roger was one of the first members of the Senate of Sydney University.

Thierry, Charles, Baron de, who claimed the sovereignty of New Zealand prior to the British annexation, was an Englishman, though born of French parents. He bore a French title, and was by birth and education a gentleman. In 1820 he had met with Hongi, a Maori chief, at Cambridge, where the Baron was studying at the university. Hongi was accompanied by a missionary named Kendall, who received from the Baron thirty-six axes wherewith to buy land for him on his return to New Zealand. In virtue of those axes, the Baron claimed an estate of forty thousand acres, but, as a matter of fact, Kendall only secured for him two hundred acres at Hokianga. In the deed of conveyance, dated in 1822, he is "described as Baron Charles Philip Hippolytus de Thierry, of Bathampton, in the county of Somerset, England, and of Queens' College, Cambridge." The Baron had held a minor diplomatic appointment, and had been in an English regiment. He therefore applied to the British Govern-

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