270 ADELAIDE AND VICINITY Hon, W. H. Bundey steadily advanced in the profession, and in 1878 was made a Queen's Counsel. As a criminal pleader and an advocate, he was almost unrivalled in the Province. One competent critic says of him that he " was probably as fine a sjieaker as we have had in South Australia, and a specially dangerous antagonist before a jury." His genius, the writer continued, was perhaps distinctly forensic ; and it was thus that he first acquired popularity. His practice became extensive, and he earned it in many sturdily fought battles. He gripped his cases with a strong hand, and whether in cross-examinations or in his addresses to the jury, he was recognised as a master. One of the best examples in this respect was in the case of Captain Cameron, a fine old Scotchman, whose ship. Lightning, ran ashore near Troubridge Lighthouse. A number of passengers were on board, and the captain was prosecuted for the misdemeanor of endangering their lives. Mr. Bundey and the late Mr. Dempster defended him ; and the blame, if any, was proven not to have rested with the captain. One of the other oflicers of the ship will not readily forget the cross-examination to which he was subjected. In his address for the defence, Mr. Bundey placed the captain's conduct and his previous career in such a light before the jury, that, when asked for their verdict, they rose as one man, and said " Not guilty " ; and as they filed out of the jury box they approached to where the captain stood by his counsel, and each of them shook hands with him. This is probably a unique incident in a Court of Justice. Seven years after entering into practice, Mr. Bundey yielded to the repeated requests of residents in the Onkaparinga district, and entered Parliament as their member. He sat for that constituency from January, 1872, until the dissolution in January, 1875, and from May, 1878, until the dissolution in March, 1881. He was thus in Parliament for nearly six years, for upwards of three of which he held a portfolio. Mr. Bundey was no political firebrand, he was an acute thinker, and had made a special study of political economy. He was well able to appraise the ultimate value of legislative measures, and to recognise the general trend of ])ublic opinion. His speeches in Parliament, and his lectures on the public platform upon the relations of capital and labor, reform of the land laws, and other subjects, were particularly impressive. He sought earnestly to guide the people in "paths which have now become well worn," and he is credited with being a pioneer in .several directions of public thought then new, but which have since become established. A short time after entering Parliament in 1872, Mr. Bundey was offered, but declined, the portfolio of Attorney-General in the Ayers-Barrow Administration, a post which was accej)ted by the late Mr. George Stevenson. In July, 1874, he joined the Government of Sir Arthur Blyth, and became the first "sixth" Minister in this Province, founding the political offices of Minister of Justice and Education. He proved himself to be an administrator thoroughly competent to grasp the details of important public offices, and he established the departments committed to his charge on harmonious lines. In the same year (1874) he introduced and carried through the House of Assembly a Bill to constitute the present Adelaide University, endowing it with a grant of 50,000 acres of country land and five acres of town land on North Terrace. He also took an active interest, in November, 1874, in the subject of establishing an advanced school for girls.
