Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/86

 of the subsequent searches, was estimated at £57,000.

Burnett, Commodore William Farquharson, C.B., entered the Royal Navy in June 1838, and became Captain in Nov. 1854. In July 1855 he was created C.B., and in July 1862 was appointed Commodore on the Australian Station. On Feb. 7th, 1863. he perished in the wreck of H.M.S. Orpheus off Manukau, New Zealand, when out of a crew of 260 only 70 were saved.

Burns, Hon. John Fitzgerald, M.L.A. was born in the north of Ireland, and emigrated to New South Wales at an early age. Having engaged in mercantile pursuits in the Hunter River district, he was returned to the Assembly for the Hunter in 1862, and represented the constituency for many years. He is now one of the members for St. Leonard's. He was Postmaster-General in the Ministry from Feb. 1875 to March 1877, and in that of Mr. from Dec. 1877 to Dec. 1878. He introduced postal cards into Australia in 1875, and was the first to give employment to women in the telegraph department. In 1878 he arranged with the Governments of the other Australian colonies and New Zealand for the duplication of the submarine cable to Australia. Mr. Burns was Treasurer in the last Robertson Ministry from Dec. 1885 to Feb. 1886, and in that of Sir from Jan. 1887 to Jan. 1889. He was gazetted a C.M.G. in the Jubilee year, but declined the honour, and the appointment was cancelled.

Burns, Rev. Thomas, D.D., was born at Mossgiel, Ayrshire, Scotland, on April 10th, 1796. His father, Gilbert Burns, was brother to the Scottish poet, Robert Burns, and was factor to Lord Blantyre. While yet a child his parents removed to the farm of Dinniny, Dumfriesshire. At the parish school he received his primary education, proceeding in course of time for the higher branches to the Grammar Schools of Closeburn and Haddington. At the latter he was a pupil of the famous Edward Irving, from whom he received a prize for proficiency in mathematics. From the Grammar School at Haddington Mr. Burns entered the University at Edinburgh, where he pursued with success the arts curriculum, and attended the classes in theology prescribed for candidates for the ministry of the Established Church of Scotland. He was then taken on trial for licence by the Presbytery of Haddington, and by it was duly licensed to preach as a probationer of the Church of Scotland. He was at that time acting as tutor in the family of Sir Hugh Dalrymple, Berwick House, Haddington, through whose influence he obtained a presentation to the parish of Ballantrae, in the Presbytery of Stranraer, Galloway, where he was ordained by that Presbytery in 1825. From Ballantrae he was translated to the parish of Monkton, Ayrshire, in 1830. where he continued parish minister till the disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843, when he relinquished his status as a minister of the Church of Scotland, and joined the Free Church of Scotland which was then formed. For a short time he remained in Monkton as Free Church minister, and helped largely to organise other Free Churches In the Presbytery of Ayr. His attention having been drawn to the proposal of the New Zealand Company to found a Scotch colony in Otago, possessing the church and school privileges peculiar to Scotland, and drawn from the membership of the Free Church, and having received the offer of being appointed the first minister of the projected colony, he resigned his charge at Monkton with a view of proceeding to Otago in that capacity. Circumstances having hindered the immediate realisation of the New Zealand Company's scheme of colonisation, Mr. Burns spent a year or two in giving lectures on the Company's plan, visiting for this purpose various parts of Scotland, but receiving no remuneration from the Company for this service. He accepted a call from the Free Church congregation of Portobello, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, and continued to act as minister there till October 1847. At that date all arrangements for prosecuting the proposed settlement of Otago having been completed, and Mr. Burns adhering to his appointment as first minister of the colony, he demitted his charge, and made ready to proceed with the outgoing emigrants to Otago. With his family, he joined at Greenwich the Philip Laing, under the command of Captain Andrew Elles, which, with the John Wickliff, appointed to sail from London, had been chartered to convey the first emigrants to Otago. These vessels left their  70