Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/137

 C.M.G. in the following year, when he was a Commissioner for New South Wales to the Melbourne International Exhibition; as also for the Amsterdam Exhibition in 1882, and the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in 1886. Mr. Davies, who was President of the Royal Commission on Friendly Societies, married, in 1861, Miss Elizabeth Eaton.

Davies, Hon. John Mark, M.L.C., ex-Minister of Justice, Victoria, is the son of the late Ebenezer Davies by his marriage with Ruth, daughter of Mark Bartlett, of Bracknell, Berks, and elder brother of the Hon. Sir (q.v.). He has been in practice in Melbourne as a solicitor since 1863, and was elected to the Legislative Council for the South Yarra Province in 1889. On the formation of the Government in Nov. 1890, Mr. Davies accepted the position of Minister of Justice, and was sworn of the Executive Council. Twelve months later he resigned, owing to inability to support the one man one vote policy of the Cabinet. He, however, resumed office when the measure was dropped, but finally retired in Feb. 1892, when the Ministry was reconstructed under Mr. .

Davies, Hon. Sir Matthew Henry, M.L.A., ex-Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Victoria, is the son of Ebenezer Davies and Ruth his wife, daughter of Mark Bartlett, of Bracknell, Berks, England, and grandson of the Rev. John Davies, of Trevecca College, South Wales. He was born at Geelong in 1850, and educated at the Geelong College, and matriculated at the Melbourne University in 1869. He was admitted a solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria in 1875, and married Elizabeth Locke, eldest daughter of the Rev. Peter Mercer, D.D., of Melbourne, Presbyterian minister. For five years he was hon. secretary to the Council of the Law Institute of Victoria, and is a J.P. for the central bailiwick. He was mayor of the city of Prahran in 1881–2; represented the electoral district of St. Kilda in the Legislative Assembly from 1883 to 1888; was a member of the Royal Commission on Transfer of Land and Titles to Land in 1885; was sworn of the Executive Council in Feb. 1886, and held a portfolio in the - Government as a Minister without responsible office from that date till Oct. 1887. Sir Matthew visited England in connection with the Colonial and Indian Exhibition while a member of the Victorian Government, 1886–7. He was Chairman of the Royal Commission on Banking in 1887, and was elected Speaker of the Legislative Assembly in Oct. 1887. He was Chairman of the Royal Commission on the Electric Lighting and Ventilation of the Parliament Houses in 1888; Executive Commissioner and a Vice-President of the Centennial International Exhibition, held in Melbourne in 1888; was returned unopposed for the electoral district of Toorak in 1889, and unanimously re-elected Speaker in the same year. He was knighted in 1890, and he gave the munificent sum of £10,000 to the Imperial Institute and other public objects in the Jubilee year of the Queen's reign. Sir Matthew Davies held the Speakership up to the General Election in April 1892, when he retired from Parliament.

Davies, Rowland Lyttleton Archer, son of Ven. Rowland Robert Davies, at one time Colonial Chaplain of Tasmania, and subsequently Archdeacon of Hobart (who came of a Mallow family, and died in 1880), was born at Longford, Tas., on March 28th, 1837. He was sent to England for his education, and returned to Tasmania in 1859. Mr. Davies, who at a very early period cultivated the belles lettres, married in Jan. 1875, and died on July 11th, 1881. After his death a selection from his literary productions was published, under the editorship of his English tutor: "Poems and other Literary Remains," edited, with biographical sketch, by Charles Tomlinson, F.R.S. (Stanford, 1884).

Davis, Hon. George, M.L.C., Minister of Defence, Victoria, emigrated to that colony at an early age, and took a prominent part in municipal affairs in Emerald Hill, one of the suburbs of Melbourne. Subsequently he removed to Gippsland and embraced pastoral pursuits, taking a keen interest in horse-breeding and racing. Having unsuccessfully contested the North Gippsland electorate, he was returned to the Upper House for the Gippsland province in Sept. 1888. When the Government was reconstructed under Mr., Mr. Davis, who is looked on as one of the leaders of the country party in Parliament, accepted a 121