Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/256

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210 ADKLAIDK AND ViClNltV klgM Hon. sir S. J. Way ■O Oxford, at the Encoenia on June 17, 1891, conferred on Mr. Way the degree of D.C.L. honoris causii. The Uni'ersity ot Adelaide conferred upon its Chancellor the ad eundcin degree of LL.D. in 1892, and Queen's University Kingston, Canada, paid him the same compliment in absentia on May 2, 1895. On June 17, 1897, the University of Cambridge conferred on him the degree of LL. I), honoris caiisd. Sir Samuel also received the same degree from the University of Melbourne at the Commencement on May 11, 1901, at the same time as it was conferred on H.R. H. the Duke of Cornwall and York. At a special Congregation of the University of Adelaide on July n, 1901, .Sir .Samuel, as Chancellor, had the honor of conferring the same degree on H.R.H. the Duke of Cornwall and York, and also /;/ absentia on His E.xcellency .Sir John Madden, K.C.M.G., Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, and of M.A. on .Sir Henry J. Wrixon, K.C.M.G., Vice-Chancellor, and on Professor E. E. Morris, M..A., D. Lit., President of the Professorial Board in the University of Melbourne. The Chief Justice is an influential Methodist. P'or many years he was closely identified with the Bible Christian Denomination, in which he was born, and he attended its P^nglish Conferences in 1869, 1891, and 1897. In 1891 he was one of the Bible Christian representatives at the Methodist (Ecumenical Conference at ashington, in America. Before leaving P-ngland for America he endowed the Bible Christian College at Shebbear with Lake Earm, an estate worth ^2,000, on which the first Bible Christian .Society was formed in 18 1 5, and which he had ])urchased on account of its denominational associations. In 1897 he visited and addressed the Wesleyan Methodist, Primitive Methodist, and Bible Christian Conferences at Leeds, Birmingham, and Exeter. So long ago as 1869 he advocated Methodist Union at the Bible Christian Conference at Bristol, and he took an active part in the movement when it assumed practical shape in Australia. In the winter of 1895 a .series of great meetings was held in each of the Australian capitals, in order to bring the question before the Methodist people of all four denominations into which they were divided. Mr, Way, who was then administering the Government of South Australia, presided at the meetings in Melbourne, .Sydney, and Adelaide, and al.so at Goulburn, in New .South Wales. The movement never lost the imjjetus it then received. The imion has since been accomplished in Oueen.sland, in -South Australia, in Western Australia, and (except as to the Primitive Methodists) in New Zealand ; and it has been arranged that the union shall be consummated in New .South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania on January i, 1902, when the United Church will be known as " The Methodist Church of Australasia." The Chief Justice is an e([ually prominent Preemason, and his advocacy of Methodist LmiIou was anticii)ated bv similar services for the union of Australian Masonrv. He was installed as first (irand .Master of the United Cirand Lodge of .South Australia, on April 17, 1884. Largely owing to the representations he made to Lord Carnarvon on his visit to Australia in 1887, and through him to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, the PLnglish, Irish, and .Scottish Grand Lodges (tntered into fraternal relations with the .South Australian (irand Lodge. This was followed by the union of the (^raft in New .South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania, and subsecjuently in New Zealand and Western Australia. Mr. Way installed Lord Carrington as Grand Master of New .South Wales on .September 18, 1888, in the presence of 4,000 P'reemasons. In 1889 he assisted His Lordship at the installation of .Sir William Clarke as (jrand Master of Victoria, and of the Rev. Paulet Harris as (irand Master of Tasmania. In the same year he resigned the Grand Mastership of South Australia in favor of the Earl of Kintore, who, besides being him.self a distinguished P'reemason, was a collateral descendant of the Earl of Kintore who was successively Grand Master of .Scotland and of P^ngland in the first half of the eighteenth century. After Lord Kintore's return to P2ngland in April, 1895, the Chief Justice was again elected Grand Master, a position which he still holds. In 1891 he assisted H.R.H. the late Duke of Clarence to instal Lord Carrington as Provincial Grand .Master of Buckinghamshire. At the great Masonic gathering