The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Archer, Archibald
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.