Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/32

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DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN BIOGRAPHY.
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went into "squatting." He was called to the Legislative Council in Oct. 1880.

Archer, Alexander, son of William Archer, of Laurvig, Norway, by Julia, daughter of David Walker, was born in Norway in 1828. He was educated at Perth, Scotland; and left for Victoria in 1852, where he was appointed agent for the Bank of New South Wales at the "Ovens" goldfield (now Beechworth). He became manager at Kyneton, Victoria, in 1854, at Brisbane, Queensland, in 1864, and Inspector in 1867. In 1871 he married Mary Louisa, eldest daughter of Sir Robert Ramsay Mackenzie, of Coul, Ross-shire. 10th Bart., by Louisa Alexandrina, daughter of Richard Jones, of Sydney, N.S.W. After thirty-six years' service in the Bank, he left for England by the R.M.S. Quetta, in Feb. 1890, accompanied by his wife, and on the 28th of the month both were lost in the wreck of that ship at the entrance to Torres Straits.

Archer, Archibald, M.L.A., J.P., sometime Colonial Treasurer of Queensland, son of William Archer, of Laurvig, Norway, to which country he went with his father when five years old, was born at Fife, in Scotland, on March 18th, 1820, and educated in Norway. After spending five years in an engineering establishment in Scotland, Mr. Archer emigrated to Australia, where he arrived in 1842, but only stayed five months, subsequently spending thirteen years in the South Sea and Sandwich Islands. In the latter he was engaged on coffee and sugar plantations. Returning to Queensland in 1860, he took up his residence at Gracemere station, and in 1867 was returned to the Legislative Assembly for the Rockhampton district, which he still represents, though he has been out of Parliament and has sat for other constituencies in the interim. Mr. Archer, who assisted in passing the Land Act of 1868, was Colonial Treasurer and Secretary for Public Instruction in the first McIlwraith Government from Jan. 1882 to Nov. 1883. Mr. Archer has recently figured as a strong advocate of the subdivision of Queensland. In 1892 Mr. Archer visited England in company with Mr. John Ferguson as a deputation on behalf of the Central Queensland Separation League.

Archer, Rev. Canon George Frederick, M.A., won the Tasmanian scholarship in 1867, and proceeded to Christ College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1872 and M.A. in 1884. He was ordained deacon in 1872, and priest in 1878, being curate of Christ Church, Frome Selwood, from 1874 to 1876, when he was appointed rector of All Saints', Hobart Town, and canon of the cathedral. Canon Archer is a member of the Council of Education.

Archer, Thomas, C.M.G., J.P., ex-Agent-General for Queensland, son of William Archer by Julia, daughter of David Walker, of Perth, Scotland, was born at Glasgow on Feb. 27th, 1823. At the age of seventeen he emigrated to New South Wales, arriving in Sydney on Dec 31st, 1837. He engaged in pastoral pursuits, and, with two of his elder brothers, Messrs. John and David Archer, decided to try his fortunes in Queensland, then the Moreton Bay district of New South Wales. In August 1841 the three brothers started from Castlereagh River, N.S.W., with about five thousand sheep, passing near where now stands Goondiwindia, the line which sixteen years later became the boundary between New South Wales and Queensland. They then crossed the Condamine about a dozen miles below Canning Downs, which had shortly before been discovered and occupied by the brothers Patrick, Walter, and George Leslie, and where the flourishing town of Warwick was afterwards founded; travelled across Darling Downs, then without road or track, to Eton Vale, which had been lately occupied by Mr. (now Sir Arthur) Hodgson. Continuing on their way, past where now stand Drayton and Toowoomba townships, they crossed the Main Range by "Hodgson's Gap," and turned northward, through unoccupied country, by Wingate's Lagoon and Mount Brisbane, soon after taken up by the brothers Frederick and Francis Biggs. Thence they pushed on to Durandur, on Stanley Creek, the eastern head of the Brisbane, near Glasshouse Mountains, a country that had been explored by David Archer. Here they remained some four or five years, and were soon joined by their eldest brother Charles. They afterwards explored and occupied two runs close under the Main Range, called Emu Creek and Cooyar, where they remained about four years. Hearing that Fitzroy Downs and Mount Abundance had been discovered by Sir Thomas Mitchell, Surveyor-General of New South Wales, who came

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