Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/191

 Despite Mr. Francis' personal popularity, he was, however, defeated, and the same result accrued when he again opposed Sir Bryan on his seeking re-election after accepting the office of Attorney-General in the Berry Government. Shortly afterwards Mr. Francis was returned to the Assembly for Warrnambool, and was re-elected in 1880 and again in 1883. Meanwhile he acted with Mr. Murray Smith as joint leader of the Constitutional party, as the combined Conservatives and old Liberals now called themselves. Mr. Francis, whose health had been for some time failing, died on Jan. 25th, 1884. His widow, Mrs. Mary Grant Francis, died in England on May 13th, 1887, at the age of sixty-three.

Frankland, Frederick William, F.I.A., son of Professor Edward Frankland, D.C.L., and his wife Sophie Fick, was born on April 18th, 1854, in Manchester, and landed in Lyttleton, N.Z., in May 1875. In September of the same year he entered the New Zealand civil service, and in March 1884 became Actuary of the New Zealand Government Insurance Department, and also Registrar of Friendly Societies. Subsequently, in 1886 he was appointed Government Actuary and statist, and in 1889 Government Insurance Commissioner. Mr. Frankland returned to England early in 1890, and is now Assistant Actuary of the Atlas Assurance Company. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries (1884), and has contributed to various journals on actuarial and mathematical topics. Mr. Frankland married, on April 30th, 1879, Miss Miriam Simmons.

Franklin, Lady, the wife of the ill-fated Arctic explorer, Sir John Franklin, was the daughter of John Griffin, and was born in 1792. She married Sir John as his second wife at Liverpool in Nov. 1828, and accompanied him to Van Diemen's Land when he was appointed Governor there in 1836. They arrived in the island in Jan. 1837 and remained till August 1843. She was a great traveller, and was the first lady to cross overland from Sydney to Port Phillip, a feat she accomplished in May 1839, two years only after the latter settlement was founded. Though a most intrepid explorer, Sir John was only a weak administrator, and his term of office was embittered by perpetual contentions between Lady Franklin and Montagu, the Colonial Secretary, nephew of the previous Governor, Arthur, as to which should dictate the policy of the Government, the matter being ultimately the subject of amusing references to the Colonial Office, who when Sir John Franklin dismissed Montagu practically reversed his decision. In 1845 Sir John Franklin proceeded on his ill-fated expedition to the Arctic seas, and perished in 1847. His wife's heroic efforts in organising search expeditions are well known. In 1860 she was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society, being the first woman on whom that distinction was conferred. She died in London on July 18th, 1875, aged eighty-three years.

Franklyn, Henry Mortimer, started the Victorian Review, a monthly magazine for some time published in Melbourne, and devoted to Australasian politics, commerce and pastoral pursuits. He also started and edited the Federal Australian, a weekly newspaper, published in Melbourne, and based on the idea of intercolonial unity. Both these enterprises have now, for some years, ceased publication. Mr. Franklyn has published "Australia in 1880" (issued in Melbourne), and "The Unit of Imperial Federation" in London in 1887.

Fraser, Hon. Alexander, M.L.C., sometime Minister of Public Works, Victoria, was the son of a Scotch farmer, and was born at Aldoura, near Inverness. In 1827 he went to London and five years later sailed for Sydney, N.S.W., in the Rubicon. The ship, however, put in at Hobart Town, Tas., and he decided to stay there, which he did till 1852, when he visited Victoria and decided to settle there. He had been interested in pastoral properties in the colony as far back as 1836, and he now started as an auctioneer in Bendigo, removing the business to Melbourne in 1853. In 1858 he was elected to the Legislative Council for the westernNorth Western [sic] province, and was Commissioner of Public Works in the Francis Ministry from June 1872 to May 1874, representing the Government in the Upper House. He was principally known as the plaintiff in an action which he brought against the Melbourne Age in 1878 for damages for a libel contained in an article reflecting on his conduct towards a deceased brother who had died in England in indigent circumstances. He recovered £250. Mr. 175