Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/400

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
Ree]
DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN BIOGRAPHY.
[Ree

Professor of Dogmatic Theology in Dublin till his appointment as Bishop of Wellington, being consecrated to that see by Cardinal Manning at St. Ann's, Spitalfields, London, on March 17th, 1874. Dr. Redwood was appointed first Archbishop of Wellington and Metropolitan of New Zealand on May 13th, 1887. His Grace is also a member of the Senate of the University of New Zealand.

Rees, William Lee, M.H.R., was born at Bristol on Dec. 16th, 1836, and went to Australia in 1851. He studied for the Congregational ministry, and was ordained in 1861. In 1865 he left the Congregational ministry, and was called to the Bar in Victoria, The following year he went to New Zealand, living first upon the West Coast, and subsequently in Auckland, where he was a member of the Provincial Council and acted as Provincial Solicitor under Sir George Grey as Superintendent. Mr. Rees became a member of the General Assembly of New Zealand in 1876, and was subsequently for some years out of Parliament. On his return in 1890 as M.H.R. for Auckland he was appointed Chairman of Committees in the House of Representatives. For many years a well-known cricketer in the different colonies, and devoted to all athletic and field sports, he comes from an athletic family, being a cousin of the Graces, the celebrated cricketers. He is the author of a political sketch of New Zealand in 1874 called "The Coming Crisis," the predictions of which have since been singularly fulfilled. In 1878 he published a historical novel: "Sir Gilbert Leigh." In 1888 he visited England and announced a system of co-operative colonisation. In the same year he published in London "From Poverty to Plenty," which contains a short history and analysis of the past and present systems of political economy, and lays down a new system of associative economics entirely opposed to the individualistic and ultra-competitive system of Adam Smith and his successors, also a pamphlet, "The Science of Wealth in the light of the Scriptures," a Christian system of economics. Mr. Rees is an ardent believer in co-operation, and for many years has supported it both in the press and from the platform. In 1892 he was elected Chairman of Committees of the House of Representatives. He has published, in conjunction with his daughter, "The Life and Times of Sir George Grey."

Reeves, Hon. William, M.L.C., was the son of a gentleman holding the position of Receiver of Fee Farm Rents, and was born at Clapham, near London. In early life he was placed in the banking house with which the Kennard family were connected, and subsequently became a stockbroker. Not being successful on the Stock Exchange, he decided to emigrate to New Zealand, and, after a short trial of farming, settled at Christchurch, in the North Island, where he became editor and chief proprietor of the Lyttelton Times. He was connected with provincial politics, and entering the House of Representatives was a member of the Executive Council and resident Minister for the Middle Island in the third Fox Government from Nov. 1871 to Sept. 1872. In Oct. 1884, he was nominated to the Legislative Council and died at Christchurch on April 4th, 1891. He married a daughter of John Edward Ross Pember, of Clapham Park, Surrey, and sister of E. H. Pember, Q.C.

Reeves, Hon. William Pember, M.H.R., Labour Minister, New Zealand, is the eldest son of the late Hon. William Reeves (q.v.), and was born in 1857 in Canterbury, N.Z. Mr. Reeves began school life at Christ College Grammar School at ten years of age by winning the Canterbury Provincial Government scholarship of £40 a year. He won it a second time, thus holding it seven years in all. In 1873 he gained the Somes scholarship (£40 for three years), and in 1874 he took two university scholarships, being first in classics and first in English. After this brilliant opening he was sent home to graduate at Oxford and read for the Bar, but ill-health, caused by the strain of his educational course, forced him back to the colony without the achievement of either object. After an interval of country life he was admitted to the New Zealand Bar. But beyond reporting for the Canterbury Law Society, he did not devote much attention to his profession. He preferred journalism, to which profession he soon devoted himself entirely, first as contributor and leader-writer to the Lyttelton Times. Then he became

384