Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/164

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DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN BIOGRAPHY.
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the breeding of first-class stock, and has imported some of the finest horses brought to Australia. He was a member of the Legislative Council from 1863 to 1868 and from 1871 till 1878, when he resigned his seat, and in the latter year went to Europe as Honorary Commissioner for South Australia at the Paris International Exhibition. In 1887 he offered to contribute £10,000 towards the establishment of a Medical School in connection with the University of Adelaide. He was knighted in May 1878, and created K.C.M.G. in 1887 and G.C.M.G. in 1888.

Elder, William, was the eldest son of George Elder, of Kirkcaldy, Scotland, and Joanna Haddo, his wife, and brother of Sir Thomas Elder (q.v.), and of Mr. A. L. Elder (q.v.). He was in the merchant service, and first came to South Australia in command of the ship Malcolm. He subsequently became a member of the eminent firm of Elder & Co., of Adelaide, but retired in 1854, and returned to reside in Scotland. He died at Cannes in April 1882, at the age of seventy-eight.

Eliott, Gilbert, C.M.G., sometime Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Queensland, was third son of Sir William Eliott, the 6th Bart. of that name, of Stobs, Roxburghshire. He was born in 1796, and married, in 1830, Isabella Lucy, daughter of the Rev. Robert Eliott, vicar of Askham (who died in 1871). He emigrated to Queensland, and was elected to the first Legislative Assembly of that colony in April 1860, as member for Wide Bay. On the meeting of the House in May he was elected the first Speaker, and, having been thrice successively re-elected in the next three Parliaments, voluntarily retired in Nov. 1870, when he was created C.M.G. He died on June 30th, 1871. Mr. Eliott's eldest son, Gilbert William, was a police magistrate in Queensland from 1865 to 1878; and, by his marriage with Jane Penelope, daughter of Thomas Thomson, of Tasmania, had a son, Gilbert Francis Eliott, born in 1859, who is Engineer of Harbours and Rivers for Northern Queensland, and has been resident at Townsville since 1880.

Ellery, Robert Lewis John, C.M.G., F.R.S., F.R.A.S. (Government Astronomer of Victoria), is the son of the late John Ellery, of Cranleigh, Surrey, where he was born in July 1827. He was educated at the local grammar school, and subsequently adopted the medical profession. Astronomical researches, however, mainly occupied his attention; and after his arrival in Victoria, in 1851, he was employed by Mr. La Trobe to establish an observatory at Williamstown, near Melbourne. He assumed office on July 13th, 1853, and has since, under various titles, discharged the functions of Government astronomer. In 1858 he initiated a geodetic and trigonometrical survey of the colony. Five years later the observatory was removed from Williamstown to its present site in the Domain, Melbourne, and the meteorological and physical observatory, previously conducted by Professor Neumayer, was amalgamated with it under the control of Mr. Ellery. He was President of the Royal Society of Victoria for twenty years, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1873. He has been a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society since 1855, and is an honorary member of numerous foreign scientific societies. Mr. Ellery is also a member of the Council of the University of Melbourne, and one of the trustees of the Public Library. In 1873 Mr. Ellery assisted in organising the Torpedo and Signal Corps (now the Submarine Mining Engineers), and held the rank of lieutenant-colonel in connection therewith. In 1889 he was created C.M.G. His first wife died in 1856, three years after their marriage; and Mr. Ellery married secondly, in 1858, Margaret, daughter of John Shields, of Launceston, Tasmania.

Emberson, Hon. Horace G. C., Receiver-General and Agent-General of Immigration, Fiji, is an Associate of Arts of Oxford University, and a notary public. He was appointed a stipendiary magistrate in Fiji in Oct. 1874, a member of the Lands Commission in Oct. 1875, Registrar-General, Chief Police Magistrate, and Commissioner of the Supreme Court in 1876, Registrar of Titles in 1877, Acting Commissioner of Crown Lands and Acting Member of the Executive Council in 1880, Acting M.L.C. in June 1881 Acting Receiver-General and Comptroller of Stamps, and a Member of the Executive Council in 1877, and, along with other duties, Acting Agent-General of Immigration in 1888. To the latter post he was permanently appointed in 1889, and holds it in conjunction with that of

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