G.C.M.G., 7th Earl of, Governor of New South Wales, is the eldest son of the 6th Earl by his marriage with the eldest daughter of the late Right Hon. Sir Robert Peel, the eminent statesman. He was born on March 20th, 1845; was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford; succeeded his father in Oct. 1859; and married, in 1872, the Hon. Margaret Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the 2nd Lord Leigh. He was a lord-in-waiting to the Queen from June 1875 to June 1877; and was Paymaster-General and made a Privy Councillor in 1890; in July of which year he was appointed to succeed Lord Carrington as Governor of New South Wales. He was also created G.C.M.G.; but his departure was postponed, owing to the illness of Lady Jersey, who contracted typhoid fever. He left for Sydney in Nov. 1890, and was followed by Lady Jersey in Jan. 1891. The early period of their régime was made memorable by the assembling of the Federal Convention in Sydney in March 1891; and by a terrible calamity in Sydney Harbour in connection with the Easter Manœuvres. Lady Jersey wrote a poem "One People One Destiny," Sir Henry Parkes' great toast at the Federal banquet.
Jervois, Lieut.-General Sir William Francis Drummond, G.C.M.G., C.B., R.E., F.R.S., late Governor of New Zealand, son of the late General William Jervois, K.H., colonel 70th Foot, and Elizabeth Maitland his wife, was born at Cowes, I.W., on Sept. 10th, 1821, and entered the Royal Engineers from Woolwich in 1839. In 1841 he went out to the Cape, and served there for seven years, making surveys and roads, and building bridges, etc. He acted in 1842 as brigade-major in an expedition against the Boers; in 1845 he was appointed acting-adjutant to the Royal Engineers; and in 1846 was brigade-major at Cape Town until the arrival of Sir G. Berkeley as commander-in-chief. He subsequently served against the Kaffirs. In 1847 he became captain, and in the following year he was appointed to the command of a company of sappers at Woolwich and Chatham. From 1852 to 1855 he was specially employed at Alderney in designing and executing fortifications. In 1854 he became major, and in 1856 was appointed assistant Inspector-General of Fortifications on the staff of the War Office. This office he held till 1875. From 1857 to 1875 he was secretary of the Committee on the Defence of the Empire, and in 1859 was appointed secretary to the Royal Commission on National Defences. In 1861 he became lieut.-colonel, and in 1862 he was Deputy Director of Fortifications; and he was also at various times a member of the Commission on the application of Iron to Ships and Forts, and on other Government commissions and committees relating to Imperial defence. He was engaged in fortification work in England, Malta, Gibraltar, Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Bermuda, India, and Burmah; and having become colonel in 1867, was in 1875 made Governor of the Straits Settlements, and during his term of office, which lasted for two years, successfully quelled an insurrection of Malays in the states of Perak and Sungei Ujong, besides preparing a plan for the government of the protected Malay States. In 1877 he became major-general, and was selected by the Government to proceed to the Australian colonies to advise upon a scheme of defence for the Australian ports. In October of the same year he was appointed Governor of South Australia in succession to Sir William Cairns. This office he held till Feb. 6th, 1883, when he was transferred to New Zealand as Governor and Commander-in-Chief, replacing Sir Arthur Gordon. Sir William's recommendations on Australasian defence were of great importance, and have in the main been carried into effect. At Port Phillip he was the first person who proposed that, in addition to artillery, at the Heads of Queenscliff and Point Nepean, the forts, batteries, and submarine mines for the defence of the estuary and of the City of Melbourne should be concentrated at the Shoals near the entrance. He pointed out that Port Phillip thus defended and the shores of the estuary thus secured, defensive forces might act on the left flank of a hostile body, if attempting to advance upon Melbourne from the harbour of Westport. At Sydney he suggested that the forts, batteries, and submarine mines for the defence of Port Jackson should be arranged so as to keep an enemy out of the harbour, instead of fighting him—on the principle previously designed—after he
250
