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DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN BIOGRAPHY.
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University College, London. He entered at Lincoln's Inn in Nov. 1827, and was called to the bar in Nov. 1832. He practised on the Western Circuit until 1837, when he went out to Australia. He was appointed Chairman of Quarter Sessions in Sydney in Oct. 1837, Solicitor-General of New South Wales in Oct. 1844, and undertook the duties of Acting Judge of the Supreme Court, in the absence of Justice Therry, from Jan. 1848 to Nov. 1849, when he returned to the Solicitor-Generalship, and held that post till the inauguration of responsible government in 1856. Sir William, who was appointed a nominee member of the mixed Legislative Council in 1851, was returned to the first Legislative Assembly for South Cumberland in 1856, and in April of that year was sworn of the Executive Council, taking office as Attorney-General in June following in the Donaldson Ministry, the first formed under responsible government in New South Wales. The Cowper Ministry came in in August for two months, and in October Mr. Manning resumed office as Attorney-General in the Parkes Ministry, but retired through ill-health in May 1857, when he was presented with his portrait (by Sir Watson Gordon, R.A.), a piece of plate, and a purse of £1000. In March 1858 he visited England, and was knighted. Returning to the colony in 1859, he again became Attorney-General in February of the next year in the Forster Ministry, but retired with his colleagues a fortnight later. He was called to the Legislative Council in 1861. In Oct. 1868 Sir William, who had become Q.C., was reappointed Attorney-General in the Robertson Ministry without a seat in the Cabinet, and retained the position under Mr. (afterwards Sir) Charles Cowper till Dec 1870, when he resigned with the rest of the Government In 1876 Sir William Manning was made a Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, and quitted the Legislative Council. In 1887 Sir William retired from the bench, where he acted as Equity Judge, and was again called to the Legislative Council. In 1861 he became a Fellow of Sydney University, and was elected Chancellor in 1878. He has been President of the New South Wales Rifle Association since its initiation in 1860. Sir William, prior to emigrating to Australia, published "Notes of Proceedings in Electoral Revision Courts" (1832), and was joint author of Neville and Manning's "Reports in Court of King's Bench" (6 vols., 1832). Sir William married, in 1836, Emily Anne, eldest daughter of Edward Wise, of Hill Grove, Isle of Wight; and, secondly, in 1849, Eliza Anne, daughter of the Very Rev. William Sowerby, Dean of Goulburn, N.S.W.

Mansfield, Rev. Ralph, was born at Toxteth Park, Liverpool, on March 12th, 1799, and was ordained a minister of the Wesleyan Church in 1820, arriving in Sydney, N.S.W., in Oct. of the latter year. He was stationed in Sydney for two years and in Parramatta and Windsor during 1823, when he was sent to Van Diemen's Land, where he remained at Hobart Town till 1825, when he returned to Sydney and discharged ministerial functions till 1828. He was editor of the Sydney Gazette, the first newspaper published in New South Wales, from 1829 to 1832, and was leader-writer for another Sydney newspaper, the Colonist, for several years. From 1841 he contributed to the Sydney Morning Herald. In 1836 he presided at a public meeting held in Sydney to promote the lighting of the city with gas. A gas-light company was formed, of which Mr. Mansfield was secretary from June 29th, 1836, till his death in June 1880.

Mantell, Hon. Walter Baldock Durant, M.L.C., son of Gideon Algernon Mantell, LL.D., F.R.S., the eminent geologist, author of "Medals of Creation," "Atlas of Fossil Remains," and Mary Ann (Woodhouse) his wife, was born on March 11th, 1820. Having emigrated to Wellington, N.Z., in 1840, he was appointed in 1848 a Commissioner for Extinguishing Native Titles in the Middle Island of New Zealand; and, by promises of various small concessions, succeeded in buying out the claims of the Maoris to 30,000,000 acres of land for about £5000 in cash. Greatly to his disgust, however, the promises he had made on behalf of the Government were not subsequently fulfilled; and being in London in 1856, when some of the principal of them were being broken, he appealed to Mr. Labouchere, then Secretary for the Colonies, to interfere in the matter. Mr. Labouchere declined to give him an interview; and finding his written

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