The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Hervey, Hon. Matthew
Hervey, Hon. Matthew, sometime Commissioner of Public Works, Victoria, was a native of Scotland, and was born at Glasgow in 1820. When eighteen years of age Mr. Hervey emigrated to Sydney, N.S.W., and ultimately was largely engaged in pastoral pursuits in the Port Phillip district, which in 1851 was constituted the separate colony of Victoria. He sat in the mixed Legislative Council of that colony, and when responsible government was achieved he was returned to the first wholly elective Legislative Council for the Eastern Province in 1856. From March 1861 to Nov. 1862 he was acting president of the latter body during the absence in England of Sir J. F. Palmer. When the MᶜCulloch Ministry was formed in June 1863 Mr. Hervey accepted a portfolio as Vice-President of the Board of Land and Works and Commissioner of Public Works. He resigned both his office and his seat in Parliament in July 1865, owing to having met with pecuniary reverses. Misfortune still continued to pursue him, and he died under very sudden and distressing circumstances on Nov. 1st, 1874, when a coroner's jury returned a verdict that death had resulted from insufficient nourishment.