The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Jersey, His Excellency the Right Hon. Victor Albert George Child Villiers
Jersey, His Excellency the Right Hon. Victor Albert George Child Villiers, G.C.M.G., 7th Earl of, Governor of New South Wales, is the eldest son of the 6th Earl by his marriage with the eldest daughter of the late Right Hon. Sir Robert Peel, the eminent statesman. He was born on March 20th, 1845; was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford; succeeded his father in Oct. 1859; and married, in 1872, the Hon. Margaret Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the 2nd Lord Leigh. He was a lord-in-waiting to the Queen from June 1875 to June 1877; and was Paymaster-General and made a Privy Councillor in 1890; in July of which year he was appointed to succeed Lord Carrington as Governor of New South Wales. He was also created G.C.M.G.; but his departure was postponed, owing to the illness of Lady Jersey, who contracted typhoid fever. He left for Sydney in Nov. 1890, and was followed by Lady Jersey in Jan. 1891. The early period of their régime was made memorable by the assembling of the Federal Convention in Sydney in March 1891; and by a terrible calamity in Sydney Harbour in connection with the Easter Manœuvres. Lady Jersey wrote a poem "One People One Destiny," Sir Henry Parkes' great toast at the Federal banquet.