The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Buckland, Rev. John Richard

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1329845The Dictionary of Australasian Biography — Buckland, Rev. John RichardPhilip Mennell

Buckland, Rev. John Richard, son of the Rev. John Buckland, Rector of Templeton, Devonshire, and a nephew of Dr. William Buckland, Dean of Westminster, was born on August 3rd, 1819. He received his early education from his father at Laleham, and was then sent to Rugby, of which school his uncle, Dr. Arnold, was at the time head master. At the age of seventeen he went to Oxford, where he held a studentship at Christ Church. After taking his degree he determined to emigrate to the colonies, and sailed for New Zealand, but in consequence of the unsettled state of affairs in that colony he removed to Tasmania, arriving in Hobart in Feb, 1843. He was for a time second master of the Queen's School, of which the Rev. J. P. Gell was head master. On the closing of that school he opened a private school. In 1845 he was ordained. In 1846 the prospectus of a Church of England Grammar School was issued, and on August 3rd in that year the school, named "The Hutchins School" in memory of Archdeacon Hutchins, was opened at Hobart, with Mr. Buckland as head master. It soon became one of the leading schools of the colony, a position which it has ever since maintained, a large number of the most prominent men of Tasmania having received their education at the Hutchins School. Mr. Buckland held the post of head master for twenty-eight years, until his death, which took place at Hobart on Oct. 13th, 1874.