Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/552

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DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN BIOGRAPHY.
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and which Mr. Latrobe had withheld owing to his distrust of local administration. On June 15th Mr. MᶜCombie submitted the following motion to the Council, which was carried by nine votes to five: "That the Legislative Committee be instructed to prepare an humble petition to her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen praying for the removal of Charles Joseph Latrobe, Esq., from the office of Superintendent of the district of Port Phillip on account of his systematic mismanagement of the money voted for the service of the province, his neglect of public works of paramount consequence, and his repeated breaches of faith in his official transactions with this Council in matters of high public importance." On August 3rd following Mr. MᶜCombie presided at a great public meeting held in Melbourne, when a resolution was carried for the despatch of a petition to the Home Government for the removal of Mr. Latrobe. The petition was courteously acknowledged, but not acted on. In 1848 Mr. MᶜCombie took an active part in what was known as the non-election movement, under which it was proposed to abstain from sending members from Port Phillip to the Sydney Legislature. As, however, a local candidate persisted in standing for the city of Melbourne, Mr. MᶜCombie proposed the nomination of Earl Grey, and he was returned by a large majority. In the outside districts the non-electionists were not so successful. They put the Duke of Wellington, Lords Palmerston, Brougham, and John Russell, and Sir Robert Peel in nomination for the five seats, but in the result five local candidates were returned. On the subject of these proceedings Mr. MᶜCombie addressed lengthy letters to Mr. Hawes, the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, and to Lord John Russell. He also took an active part in the anti-transportation movement, subscribing a hundred guineas towards the funds of the Australasian League in 1851. Though Mr. MᶜCombie had been one of the most prominent advocates of the separation of Port Phillip from New South Wales, he was not elected to the mixed Legislative Council when in 1851 the colony of Victoria was constituted. In 1856, however, when responsible government was conceded, Mr. MᶜCombie was returned to the Upper House for the South Province. He was a member of the second O'Shanassy Ministry without portfolio from March 1858 to Oct. 1859. Latterly Mr. MᶜCombie eschewed public life, and was connected with the press in Geelong. He was the author of "New Plan of Colonial Government" (1845); "Waste Land Acts Considered" (1846); "Australian Sketches," reprinted from Tait's Magazine (1847); "History of the Colony of Victoria" (London, 1858). He died in Victoria.

Macgregor, Hon. John, sometime Minister of Mines, Victoria, was the son of John Macgregor, and was born in the island of Skye, Scotland, in 1828. He arrived in Victoria in 1840, was admitted a solicitor of the Supreme Court in 1855, and practised in Melbourne, in what was latterly the firm of Macgregor, Ramsay, & Brahe. He unsuccessfully contested East Bourke in 1868, but on the retirement of Mr. Wilson Gray in the next year he was returned for Rodney, for which district he sat in the Legislative Assembly till 1874, when he retired from Parliament. Mr. Macgregor joined the first MᶜCulloch Government, and was Minister of Mines from July 1866 to May 1868. On the defeat of the Macpherson Ministry in April 1870 Mr. Macgregor was asked by the Governor to form a Government, but he recommended that Sir James MᶜCulloch should be sent for. Mr. Macgregor brought in, and for the first time carried, a Payment of Members Bill. He had long retired from public life when he died on March 27th, 1884.

McIlwraith, Hon. Sir Thomas (pp. 297-9). In the action mentioned on pages 298-9, the Chief Justice overruled the findings of the jury, and entered a verdict for plaintiffs, against which defendants have appealed.

Mewburn, William Richmond, manager of the Union Bank of Australia, Limited, was born at Acomb, Northumberland, on August 26th, 1834. In Feb. 1854 he became a junior clerk in the Union Bank of Australia, Limited, in London. Mr. Mewburn was appointed assistant-secretary of the Bank in Jan. 1864, secretary in Jan. 1866, and manager in Sept. 1876. Mr. Mewburn returned from a visit to Australia and New Zealand in 1888.

Miller, Hon. Henry John, M.L.C.,

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