The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/a'Beckett, Hon. William Arthur Callendar
| ←a'Beckett, Sir William | The Dictionary of Australasian Biography by a'Beckett, Hon. William Arthur Callendar |
Abigail, Francis → |
a'Beckett, Hon. William Arthur Callendar, J.P., eldest son of the late Sir William a'Beckett (q.v.), was in the Legislative Council of Victoria from 1868 to 1876, and held office without portfolio in the Administration of Sir Charles Gavan Duffy from June 1871 to June 10th, 1872. He was sworn in as a member of the Executive Council on July 31st, 1871. He represented the first Berry Government in the Legislative Council, being a member of the Ministry without office from Aug. 7th to Oct. 20th, 1875. He was admitted to the Victorian bar on Sept. 15th, 1875. Mr. a'Beckett, who was born at Kensington on July 7th, 1833, and educated at King's College, London, and at Downing College, Cambridge, where he was a Fellow Commoner, has also been called to the English (Inner Temple) and New South Wales bars. He married, in Sept. 1855, Emma, only child and heiress of John Mills, of Melbourne. He has been a magistrate of the colony of Victoria since 1862, but now resides at Penleigh House, Westbury, Wilts.
Abigail, Francis, J.P., son of the late William Abigail, was born in London in 1840. He emigrated to Sydney in 1860, and married there, in 1861. Mr. Abigail was M.L.A. for West Sydney from 1880 to June 1891, when he was defeated. He was Minister of Mines in Sir Henry Parkes' Administration from Jan. 20th, 1887, to Jan. 10th, 1889, and is a J.P. of the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria. He was a member of the New South Wales Commission for the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition of 1888, and for the Exhibition of Mining and Metallurgy, held at the Crystal Palace in 1890, in which year he visited England, and received a cordial welcome from the various Orange bodies in England and the north of Ireland. Whilst in London he gave valuable evidence before the Royal Commission on Mines.
Abraham, Right Reverend Charles John, M.A., D.D., the son of the late Captain Abraham, R.N., of Farnborough, Hants, was born in 1815, and educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, of which he was successively Scholar and Fellow. He was admitted to the degree of B.A. in 1837, M.A. in 1840, B.D. in 1849, and received the degree of D.D. in 1859. He was ordained deacon in 1838, and priest in the following year. He was Assistant Master at Eton until 1850, when he went out to New Zealand to become Master of the English department of St. John's College, Auckland. In 1853 he was appointed Archdeacon of Waitemata by the Bishop (Selwyn) of New Zealand. The Bishop had for two or three years been offering to members of the Church of England a Church Constitution, whereby they were to govern themselves; and during the two years which followed, while absent in England, he left Archdeacon Abraham to propagate and expound the principles of the Church Constitution. In 1857 a convention of representative churchmen from all parts of the colony was held in Auckland, which resulted in the framing of the Constitution now in force. In the following year Archdeacon Abraham, who had also been acting as chaplain to the Bishop, was consecrated first Bishop of Wellington by the Archbishop (Sumner) of Canterbury and Bishops (Wilberforce) of Oxford and (Lonsdale) of Lichfield. When the Maori war broke out by reason of the purchase by the Government of the Waitara block, Bishop Abraham presented a protest to the Governor, claiming for the Maoris as British subjects the right to be heard in the Supreme Court. In 1870 he resigned his see, and, returning to England, was made coadjutor to Dr. Selwyn, then Bishop of Lichfield. This office he held until the death of Bishop Selwyn, in 1878. From 1872 to 1876 he was Prebendary of Bobenhall in Lichfield Cathedral, and in 1875-6 was rector of Tattenhill, Staffordshire. Since 1876 he has been Canon and Precentor of Lichfield Cathedral. He married in 1850 Caroline Harriet, daughter of Sir Charles Thomas Palmer, Bart., of Wanlip Hall, Leicestershire, and cousin of the wife of Bishop Selwyn. She died in 1877. Bishop Abraham is the author of "Festival and Lenten Lectures in St. George's Chapel, Windsor," 1848-9 (Parker), and other works.
Adams, Francis William Leith, is the son of the late Professor Andrew Leith Adams, F.R.S., F.G.S., and grandson of Francis Adams, M.D., LL.D., a distinguished Scotch physician and classical scholar. His mother is the well-known authoress, Mrs. Bertha Leith Adams (now Mrs. B. S. de Courcy Laffan), of Stratford-on-Avon. Mr. Adams resided in Queensland and various other parts of Australia, and published his "poetical works" in Brisbane. He has also written "Leicester, an Autobiography" (London, 1885); "Australian Essays" (Melbourne, 1886); "Songs of the Army of Night" (London, 1890). The next year he contributed a series of remarkable articles on Australia to the Fortnightly Review, and early in 1892 published in London a collection of Australian tales.
Adams, Philip Francis, ex-Surveyor General, New South Wales, was born in Suffolk in 1828. Ten years later his family removed to the north of Ireland, and he was educated at the Belfast Institution. In 1851 he emigrated to Canada, and subsequently had an unlucky experience at the Californian diggings. He came to Sydney in 1854, and was Government Land Surveyor for the Maitland district till 1857. He was afterwards connected with the Trigonometrical Survey of New South Wales. In 1864 he was appointed Deputy Surveyor General, and Surveyor General on March 17th, 1868. Mr. Adams retired on a pension, and was a member of the New South Wales Commission in Sydney for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886.
Adams, Robert Dudley, was born on July 9th, 1829, on board the Rotterdam packet, in which his mother was travelling to England. He was for a time private secretary to the Hon. Sidney Herbert (afterwards Lord Herbert of Lea), the popular War Minister. He arrived in New South Wales on Sept. 21st, 1851, and engaged in commercial and pastoral pursuits, in the intervals of which, between 1860 and 1880, he wrote a series of articles on "Australian Finance and Resource" for the English press and magazines, also for the colonial press, numerous political sketches, reviews, and essays, also two poems, the "Psalm of Time" and "Song of the Stars" (the latter subject suggested to him by the late Prince Albert). He has been a member of all the New South Wales Exhibition Commissions (except one), including that for Chicago.
Adams, Hon. Robert Patten, puisne judge, Tasmania, third son of James White Adams, of Martook, Somerset, and Mary Anne Elizabeth his wife, was born on March 4th, 1831, and educated at Martock grammar school and at King's College School, London. He entered at the Middle Temple in April 1851, and was called to the bar on May 1st, 1854. Mr. Justice Adams emigrated to Tasmania, and was called to the bar there on Sept. 25th, 1856. He subsequently became Chairman of Quarter Sessions and a Commissioner of the Court of Requests for the northern division of Tasmania. Having embraced political life, he entered the House of Assembly, and was returned for Hobart in 1859, 1861, and from 1862-6. He became Solicitor-General in 1867, and held the appointment till 1887, when on March 14th he was appointed a puisne judge. He is Chancellor of the Diocese of Tasmania, and has been twice married; his first wife, who died in 1867, being Harriett Matilda, daughter of the late Captain George King, R.N. He married secondly Kate, daughter of the late George Francis Huston, J. P., of New Norfolk, Tasmania.
Adamson, Travers, was called to the Irish bar at King's Inn in April 1850, and admitted to practise at the Victorian bar on Nov. 24th, 1852. He represented the Murray district in the first Legislative Assembly of Victoria, which assembled in Nov. 1856. Mr. Adamson was Solicitor-General in the Nicholson Administration from Oct. 27th, 1859, to March 5th, 1860, and was for many years Crown prosecutor.
Addis, William E., B.A., son of the late Rev. Thomas Addis, of Edinburgh, minister of the Free Church, was born in 1844, and was Snell Exhibitioner to Balliol College, Oxford. He matriculated on Oct. 12th, 1861, and took a first class in Classical Moderations in 1863, and a first class in the final classical schools in 1865. He took his B.A. degree in 1866, and very shortly afterwards became a convert to the Roman Catholic Church, and a member of the congregation of St. Philip Neri at the Brompton Oratory. He left the Oratory, and became priest in charge of Lower Sydenham. In 1888 he resigned the priesthood, after issuing a circular to his parishioners announcing his abjuration of Roman Catholic
