Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/497

 He was one of the first members of the volunteer force established in 1854 for the defence of the colony, and was engaged at the head of his company in 1857 in suppressing the outbreak of convicts in which Captain Price was killed. In 1859 he was elected member for Williamstown, and on Nov. 26th in the following year he was appointed Treasurer in the Government, retiring with his colleagues on Nov. 14th, 1861. He was reappointed Treasurer under Mr. (afterwards) Sir on June 27th, 1863, and held office until May 6th, 1868. As honorary secretary to the Astronomical Observatory, and as a member of the Government, he did much to assist in the perfection of the present system of astronomical observation. In 1866 the Government and Legislature of Victoria resolved upon sending a minister of the Crown to England for the purpose of bringing the subject of the defence of the colony before the Home Government, and Mr. Verdon was selected for the mission, in which he was completely successful, obtaining a contribution of £100,000 towards the construction of the Cerberus, and the gift of the Nelson for a training-ship. He was also instrumental in smoothing away the obstacles to the establishment of the Melbourne Mint, and was created C.B. for his services Nov. 23rd, 1866. On his return to Victoria he was elected to the Assembly for Emerald Hill, and on May 5th, 1868, was appointed Agent-General for the colony in England. He was elected P.R.S. in 1870, and is an Associate of the Institute of Civil Engineers. He was nominated a K.C.M.G. on Feb. 22nd, 1872, on the occasion of his retiring from the Agent-Generalship, and accepted the office of colonial inspector and general manager of the English, Scottish and Australian Chartered Bank, a position he held till 1891, being elected chairman of the associated banks in 1888, in which year he represented the Royal British Commission at the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition. Sir George revisited England in 1890. He married on March 28th, 1861, Anne, daughter of John Armstrong, of Melbourne, who died on August 22nd, 1889.

Viard, Right Rev. Dr., sometime Roman Catholic Bishop of Wellington, N.Z., was born in Lyons, France, on Oct. 11th, 1809, being ordained a priest about 1834. Having joined the Society of Mary in 1839, he was sent out as a missionary to the South Seas, remaining in New Caledonia for five years. He then, at the request of Bishop Pompallier, was transferred to New Zealand, where he was appointed Vicar-General and subsequently coadjutor to that prelate, the Pope in Feb. 1845 conferring on him the title of Bishop Coadjutor to the Vicar-Apostolic of Western Oceania. When the episcopal see of Wellington was created in June 1848, Dr. Viard was nominated Apostolical Administrator of that diocese, and Bishop on July 3rd, 1860. Not long after his return from a visit to Europe he was seized with illness, and died on July 2nd, 1872. He was buried in the Catholic cathedral at Wellington, the construction of which was commenced under his auspices.

Vincent, J. E. Matthew, F.R.G.S., is chief commissioner for Messrs. Chaffey Brothers' Australian irrigation colonies, and has been engaged during the last four years in making known to the public in Great Britain and elsewhere the highly favourable conditions which Australia presents as a fruit-producing country and the peculiar advantages for high-class colonisation which are afforded by the colonies which he represents. These were recently founded (although now very remarkably developed) by the well-known brothers Chaffey, now merged into the company of Chaffey Brothers, Limited. Mr. Vincent himself resided, from considerations of health, for some nine or ten years in Australia, nearly the whole of the settled portion of which he has visited, and where he devoted himself to promoting agricultural development in connection with the sugar industry of Queensland on a system of co-operation amongst the whites which he designed in order to dispense with the necessity for coloured labour. Springing from an old family of yeomen in Dorsetshire, Mr. Vincent was educated at Christ's Hospital. Subsequently he was articled to the editor of the Sherborne Journal, one of the oldest newspapers in the west of England. Marrying the daughter of R. J. L. Witty, C.E. (an inventor of note), his wife co-operated with him in much subsequent journalistic 481