principal of the Training College. In 1886 he was elected Warden of the Melbourne University Senate. Mr. Topp took an active part in the foundation of a chair of biology at the University, and the establishment of degrees in science. Recently he was appointed by the Government to report, in conjunction with the Inspector-General of Schools, on the system of State education in New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria. He was a contributor to the Melbourne Review, of which his brother, Mr. A. M. Topp, the well-known Melbourne journalist, was one of the founders and joint editors. In 1890, on the reconstruction of the Board of Public Health in Victoria, Mr. Topp was appointed chairman, and in the same year he was elected a member of the Council of the University of Melbourne.
Topp, Samuel St. John, B.A., LL.M., is the youngest son of Samuel Topp, late of Melbourne, and was born at Huddersfield, in Yorkshire, on June 13th, 1850. He received his education at King Edward VI.'s Grammar School, Birmingham, and at the Church of England Grammar School, Melbourne (where he arrived in 1861). He subsequently matriculated at the Melbourne University, where he proceeded to the degrees of LL.M. and B.A. In the Law Course he carried off the third year Law Exhibition and the Law Scholarship in his fourth year, taking first-class honours on each occasion. He wound up his university career by carrying off the Shakespeare Scholarship, the great literary prize of the university. He was admitted to the Victorian Bar on Sept. 13th, 1877, and acted as law reporter on the Victorian Law Reports for several years. He also contributed some articles on literary subjects to the Melbourne Review in the earlier years of its existence. He has practised his profession ever since his admission to the Bar, and has occupied for some years past a leading position as an advocate in the Equity, Insolvency, and Mining Courts of Victoria. Mr. Topp is a member of the Bar Committee of Victoria and also a member of the Board of Examiners for Barristers of the Supreme Court.
Torrance, Rev. George Williams, M.A., Mus. Doc., was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated B.A. in 1864, M.A. in 1867, and Mus. Bac. and Mus. Doc. in 1879. He was ordained by the Bishop of Lichfield in 1865 for the curacy of St. Mary's, Shrewsbury, and remained there till 1867, when he became curate of St. Ann's, Dublin. He went to Victoria in Dec.; 1869, and in the following February accepted the curacy of Christ Church, South Yarra, being from 1871 to 1876 in charge of St. John's, Melbourne. He was appointed acting head of Trinity College (affiliated to the Melbourne University) on the opening of that institution in 1872, but resigned on his nomination to the incumbency of All Saints', Geelong, in 1877. In January of the next year he was appointed to his present incumbency, at Holy Trinity, Balaclava. In 1879 the degrees of Mus. Bac. and Mus. Doc. were conferred on him by the University of Dublin, and he was subsequently admitted Mus. Doc. ad eundem by the University of Melbourne. At the Social Science Congress, in 1880, Dr. Torrance was elected President of the Fine Arts section, and delivered the opening address. In addition to his ministerial work he has given much time and attention to the study and practice of music, which he began as a chorister in Christ Church, Dublin, afterwards pursuing his studies in Germany. Among other works, he produced in 1882 a new oratorio entitled the "Revelation," which was performed at the Melbourne Town Hall, under his direction. In 1883 Dr. Torrance was appointed one of the examiners for the Clarke scholarship at the Royal College of Music, London, and by the Commissioners of the Centennial Exhibition of 1880 one of the judges in the competition for the opening cantata. In 1886 he visited Europe, and was present, with his protégé, Ernest Hutcheson, a rising young Australian musician, at the famous "Wagner Festival" at Bayreuth. He returned to Victoria in the following year. Dr. Torrance was married, in 1872, to the eldest surviving daughter of the late S. B. Vaughan, solicitor, of Melbourne.
Torreggiani, Right Rev. Elzear, D.D., O.S.F.C, Bishop of Armidale, N.S.W., in the province of Sydney, was consecrated on March 25th, 1879. Prior to coming to Australia the bishop had had large experience of pastoral work in England and the south of Wales. He was Superior of the Capuchin Monastery in Lower Park
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