1884. Mr. Oliver married first at Penzance,on June 18th, 1858, Ellen, daughter of William Purchase; and secondly, at Penzance, on August 19th, 1885, Louise d'Este, daughter of J. S. Courtney, of Alverton House, Penzance, and sister of Right Hon. Leonard H. Courtney, M.P., Chairman of Committees, House of Commons. He was nominated to the Legislative Council in Nov. 1881.
O'Loghlen, Hon. Sir Bryan, Bart., M.L.A., M.A., formerly Premier of Victoria, is the third son of the late Right Hon. Sir Michael O'Loghlen, a distinguished Irish judge, who was created a baronet in 1838, and who was the first Roman Catholic raised to judicial office either in England or Ireland after the revolution of 1688. Sir Bryan's elder brother, Sir Colman O'Loghlen, represented the county of Clare in the English Parliament from 1863 to 1877, and was Judge Advocate-General in the Gladstone Government from 1868 to 1870. Sir Bryan was born on June 27th, 1828, and was educated at St. Clement's School, Oxford, Oscott College, Birmingham, and ultimately at Trinity College, Dublin, where he entered in 1846 and took honours in classics and mathematics. In 1847-8 he took part on the national side in Irish politics, and in the latter year was articled to Mr. T. Flanagan, the engineer of the Bolton, Blackburn, and Clitheroe line, with the view of becoming a railway engineer. Two years later the railway panic occurred, and Mr. O'Loghlen (as he then was) took to farming some of the family acres in county Clare. He grew tired of this too, and passed the year 1851 in a mercantile office in London. The next year he hit upon his metier, and decided to read for the Bar. With this view he went back to Trinity College, Dublin, where he was classed as a junior moderator in the degree examination (B.A. 1856) and received a silver medal. After reading in his brother, Sir Michael's chambers, he was called to the Irish Bar in Easter term, 1856. He spent five years on the Munster circuit, and then decided to emigrate to Australia, arriving in Melbourne in Jan. 1862. Here he was admitted to the local Bar in Feb. following, and entering on the active practice of his profession, was appointed Crown Prosecutor in April 1863. From 1871 to Jan. 1877 Mr. O'Loghlen was employed in this capacity in the metropolitan district and conducted some of the heaviest criminal cases in the colony. At the general election in May 1877, when the Berry party swept the country, Mr. O'Loghlen came forward for North Melbourne as an advanced Liberal, advocating annual elections, payment of members (since conceded), deprivation of the Upper House of the power of rejecting money bills, a free university and free and compulsory but religious primary instruction. He was defeated by only sixteen votes, and on July 22nd in the same year succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his surviving elder brother. His friends in Clare at once put him in nomination as his brother's successor in the representation of the county, and, despite the disadvantage of absence, he was returned at the head of the poll by an overwhelming majority over The O'Gorman Mahon and Mr. Reeves, who both also stood. In Jan. 1878 Sir Charles MacMahon resigned his seat for West Melbourne, and Sir Bryan O'Loghlen at once plunged into the fray as the Berryite candidate for the vacancy. He was opposed by Mr. J. G. Francis, an ex-Premier and probably the most popular embodiment of Conservatism in the colony. Popular enthusiasm on the side of the new Liberalism was, however, at its height, and on Feb. 4th Sir Bryan beat his doughty opponent by a majority of ninety votes, the contest exciting greater interest, owing to the strained nature of the political situation, than was probably ever aroused by a bye-election in the short but pregnant history of Victoria. Mr. Trench, the Attorney-General, subsequently resigned, and Sir Bryan O'Loghlen took his place on March 27th. He had thus again to go before the electors of West Melbourne within seven weeks of his first fight. Again Mr. Francis opposed him, and again Sir Bryan O'Loghlen repulsed the assault, though by a reduced majority. As legal adviser to the Government in the stormy times of the contest between the two Houses over the payment of members, "tack," and the "Black Wednesday" dismissals, Sir Bryan O'Loghlen had now to act a very similar part to that played by Mr. Higinbotham in the first MᶜCulloch Ministry, the bone of discord being in each case the claim of the Lower House to absolute financial
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