Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/514

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
Web]
DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN BIOGRAPHY.
[Wee

edited a supplementary volume. Mr. Webb was Dr. Ream's principal assistant in the preparation of the former's monumental code. He married, on July 29th, 1876, Kate, third daughter of the late Hon. J. T. Smith.

Webber, Right Rev. William Thomas Thornhill, D.D., 3rd Bishop of Brisbane, is the son of William Webber of London, and was born on Jan. 30th, 1837. He was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford, where he matriculated in 1856, and became B.A. in 1859, M.A. in 1862, and D.D. (honoris causa) in 1885. He was ordained deacon in 1860, and priest in 1861. After being for four years curate of Chiswick, Dr. Webber in 1864 became vicar of St. John the Evangelist, Holborn, a position which he retained till his appointment to the bishopric of Brisbane in 1885. As vicar of St. John's Dr. Webber displayed exceptional powers of organisation, the schools, guilds and other societies in connection with his Church being regarded as a model throughout London. He was also connected with the administration of some of the leading Metropolitan Charitable and Educational Agencies, being for twenty years a member of the Council of the Working Men's Club and Institute Union, Vice-President of the National Association for Promoting State-directed Emigration, from 1873 to 1875; Chairman of the Finance and Reference Committee of the Girls' Friendly Society from 1881 to 1885; and was a member of the London School Board representing the district of Finsbury from 1882 to 1885. Having been for twenty-one years one of the most useful and energetic clergymen in London, Dr. Webber was appointed to succeed Dr. Hale as Bishop of Brisbane, and was consecrated in St. Paul's Cathedral by the Archbishop of Canterbury on St. Barnabas Day 1885. He attended the Pan-Anglican Synod held at Lambeth in 1888, and returned to Brisbane in the following year.

Wedge, Hon. John Helder, M.L.C., was born in England in 1792. He arrived in Tasmania in 1824, having received an appointment in the Survey Department of that colony. In 1828 Mr. Wedge made three exploring journeys from Circular Head into the north-west portion of the island, having been instructed by the Government to report on the discoveries of the Van Diemen's Land Company's surveyors, Messrs. Goldie, Fossy, and Hellyer. On his return he strongly urged on the Government the reservation of a township and area at Emu Bay, but, unfortunately for the colony, his advice was not taken, and the land was granted to the Van Diemen's Land Company. Some years later, with Mr. Frankland, the Surveyor-General, he explored the country from the head waters of the Derwent to Port Davey, tracing the Huon River from its source. In 1835 he went to Port Phillip as agent for a syndicate of fifteen Tasmanians, including Batman, J. T. Gellibrand and himself, to take up a large tract of land, and 600,000 acres were purchased from the blacks before the party led by J. P. Fawkner arrived. The land purchased extended from the mouth of the river Yarra to three miles above the first fall, thence fifty miles in a north-west line, thence fifty miles in a westerly line, thence eighty miles to the Barwon River at Geelong, and thence along the shore of Port Phillip Bay to the point of commencement at the mouth of the Yarra Yarra River. The purchase was disallowed by the Sydney Government, though at a later period a grant of land was given to the company as compensation, Mr. Wedge selling his share in 1854 for £18,000. After the collapse of the company he went to England, returning to Tasmania with Bishop Nixon in 1843, when he accepted the post of manager of the Christ College estate at Bishopsbourne. In 1855 he was elected member of the old Legislative Council for the district of Morven, and on the introduction of free institutions in 1856 was elected member for the new Legislative Council for the district of North Esk. He was a member without office of the short-lived Gregson Ministry from Feb. 26th to April 25th, 1857. At a later date he represented Hobart, and afterwards the Huon, in the Legislative Council, retaining his seat until his death. He resided for many years on his estate of Leighlands, near Perth, but in 1865 removed to the estate of Medlands, on the river Forth, where he died on Nov. 22nd, 1872, at the age of eighty.

Weekes, Hon. Elias Carpenter, was returned to the first Legislative Assembly elected in New South Wales after the

498