College, Oxford. After a somewhat stormy youth, he left England on August 7th, 1853, for South Australia, where he joined the mounted police as a trooper. Leaving the police, he became a horse-breaker, and married a Miss Park. In 1864 he received some £7,000 on his father's death, and on March 1st, 1865, was elected to the South Australian Legislative Assembly for the Victoria district. He was an occasional speaker in the House until his resignation on Nov. 10th, 1866. In 1867 he migrated to Victoria, and opened a livery stable at Ballarat. At this time he acquired a wide reputation as a daring steeplechase rider. In 1869 he removed to Melbourne, and settled in the suburban district of New Brighton. Prior to this he had published a collection of his poems at Mount Gambier, in South Australia. His second volume, "Sea Spray and Smoke Drift," published in 1867, gave him a reputation throughout Australia, and he was cordially welcomed in literary circles in Melbourne. But this bright outlook was only temporary, owing to the depression induced by the failure of his attempt to secure the reversion of the estate of Esselmont in Scotland. His "Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes," published in 1870, enhanced his fame, but he yielded to feelings of morbid discouragement and committed suicide by shooting himself on June 24th in that year. Another of his productions was "Ashtaroth, a Dramatic Lyric." A collected edition of his poems was published in 1880, edited by his friend Marcus Clarke, the novelist, who was associated with him as one of the early members of the Melbourne Yorick Club. Some additional poems, prose sketches, and his political speeches are printed in a memoir, by Mr. J. Howlett Ross, entitled "The Laureate of the Centaurs," issued in 1888.
Gordon, Hon. Sir Arthur Hamilton, G.C.M.G., D.C.L., formerly Governor of New Zealand, the fourth son of George, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, by Harriet, daughter of Hon. John Douglas, and relict of James, Viscount Hamilton, was born on Nov. 26th, 1829. He acted as private secretary to his father when First Lord of the Treasury, 1852-5. In July 1854 he was elected as a Liberal for Beverley, but lost his seat at the general election of 1857. In Nov. 1858 he accompanied Mr. Gladstone on his special mission as Lord High Commissioner Extraordinary to the Ionian Islands, and on Feb. 25th, 1860, became captain-commandant of the 1st Aberdeenshire Rifle Volunteers. In Oct. 1861 he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick; in Nov. 1866 Governor of Trinidad; and in Sept. 1871 assumed the Governorship of Mauritius. In 1874 he retired from the latter post, but in Sept. 1875 became Governor of Fiji, to which office was added two years later that of Consul-General and High Commissioner for the Western Pacific. At the end of 1880 he succeeded Sir Hercules Robinson as Governor of New Zealand. The new governor found the Government busy with the troubles in connection with the native land question, and the "prophet" Te Whiti; and in 1881, while Sir Arthur was absent in Fiji upon his duties as High Commissioner, and during the acting governorship of Sir James Prendergast, the Ministry carried out the well-known raid on Parihaka, which culminated in the arrest of Te Whiti. Sir Arthur Gordon, while publicly notifying his opinion that a governor was bound to act upon the advice of his ministers, whether he regarded them as right or wrong, was understood to reserve to himself the right of moral disapproval; and it is believed that his dislike to native policy of the Government led to his resignation of the Governorship in 1882. In the following year he was transferred to Ceylon, and in 1890 returned to England upon the expiration of his term of office. He was created C.M.G. in 1859, K.C.M.G. in 1871, and G.C.M.G. in 1878. Sir Arthur married, on Sept. 20th, 1865, Rachel Emily, eldest daughter of the late Sir John G. Shaw-Lefevre, K.C.B., who died in 1890. In June 1892 he took part in the Queensland Kanaka labour controversy in a sense adverse to the Government policy.
Gordon, Hon. John Hannah, M.L.C., Minister of Education, South Australia, has only recently taken a prominent part in political life, and having been returned to the Legislative Council for the Southern district in May 1888, was Minister of Education and of the Northern Territory in Dr. Cockburn's Ministry from June 1889 to August 1890. He was appointed one of the representatives of South Australia to the Federation Convention held
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