Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/535

This page has been validated.
Win]
DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN BIOGRAPHY.
[Wis


success to his brilliant contributions to its leading columns.

Winter-Irving, Hon. William Irving, M.L.C., J.P., F.R.G.S., is the third son of the late John Winter, of Lauder, Berwickshire, who brought his family to Victoria in 1841, and ultimately settled in Lauderdale, Ballarat, by his marriage with Janet Margaret Irving, of Bonshaw, Scotland. He was educated at the Scotch College, Melbourne, and was brought up to pastoral pursuits, in which his father, the late Mr. John Winter, achieved very great success. In 1857 he, with his brothers, purchased Colbinabbin and other stations in the Rodney district at a cost of about £200,000; and in 1868, on a friendly dissolution of partnership, the Stanhope estate, where he still resides, fell to his share. In 1874, in conjunction with Mr. J. Ettershank, of East Loddon, Mr. Winter visited England, and successfully conducted the appeal to the Privy Council against the Crown, relative to the five shilling per acre penalty sought to be enforced against the holders of certificated lands. Mr. Winter was for some years a member of the Waranga Shire Council, being twice president, and was appointed a territorial magistrate in 1868. In 1871 he stood for the Eastern Province against Sir Francis Murphy, but ultimately retired in that gentleman's favour. In 1884, on the death of the late Sir William Mitchell, President of the Legislative Council, he was returned unopposed for the Northern Province. In 1890 Mr. Winter, who in 1868 married the only daughter of William Drayton Taylor, J.P., of Noorilim, Goulburn, assumed his mother's surname in addition to and in conjunction with his patronymic. His late brother, James Winter, of Toolamba, Murchison, who died at Norwood, near London, in 1886, was also a well-known pastoralist.

Wisdom, Hon. Sir Robert, K.C.M.G., was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, on Jan. 31st, 1830, and arrived in Australia in 1834 with his parents. He was educated at Maitland, N.S.W., and at the Sydney College, and was admitted to the Colonial Bar in 1861. He became the first member for the Western Goldfields in 1859, having resigned the office of Gold Commissioner, which he had previously held, to contest the seat. He represented this constituency in the Assembly in two parliaments, the Lower Hunter in two more, and was also member for the Northern Goldfields. For a short period he was Crown Prosecutor, and afterwards represented Morpeth. He was Chairman of Committees in the Assembly for nearly four years, and was appointed a member of the Council of Education 1878. He was Attorney-General in the Parkes Government from August 1879 to Jan. 1883. In 1887 he came to England with Sir Patrick Jennings as one of the delegates of New South Wales, to the Colonial Conference held in that year, and was created K.C.M.G. during the sittings. Returning to New South Wales, Sir Robert died on March 17th, 1888.

Wise, Bernhard Ringrose, M.L.A., B.A., is second son of the late Mr. Justice Wise (q.v.), and graduated B.A. at Queen's College, Oxford (of which he was scholar), in 1881. He entered at the Middle Temple in Oct. 1879, and was called to the Bar in England and New South Wales in April 1883. Mr. Wise married, on April 2nd, 1884, Lilian Margaret, third surviving daughter of John Forster Baird, of Bowmont Hill, Northumberland, and of St. Aidan's, Hampstead. He entered the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales as member for South Sydney, and was Attorney-General in the Parkes Government from Jan. 1887 to Feb. 1888, when he left the Ministry. At the general election in 1889 he was defeated for South Sydney, and was also an unsuccessful candidate for the West Macquarie district. Mr. Wise has contributed a number of articles on Australian subjects to the English magazines. He is very eulogistically referred to in Sir Charles Dilke's recently published "Problems of Greater Britain," and was re-elected for South Sydney in 1891. In the following year he published "Industrial Freedom: A Study in Politics" (Cassell & Co.). Mr. Wise was a friend and associate of the late Arnold Toynbee, and approaches industrial questions in the spirit of that stimulating thinker. His latest work is dedicated to Sir Henry Parkes, "an honoured chief and friend," and has been suggested and inspired by the circumstances of the free-trade controversy at the Antipodes. "For seven years the writer has been engaged by the side of Sir Henry Parkes in the forefront of an

519