Page:The life and letters of Sir John Henniker Heaton bt. (IA lifelettersofsi00port).pdf/15



KNEW Sir John Henniker Heaton well in Australia, and since 1909 well in England. Perhaps the two leading attributes of his personality—on the emotional side—were his intense public spiritand his unfailing genialty. Loving hands have written his life. As one of the inner circle of his friends, I can add a hearty endorsement of the filial tribute to his memory.

I came to know him many years ago. Mr Samuel Bennett bright us together in Sydney. Mr Bennett was one of the best Englishmen I knew in Australia. By sheer force of character, backed up by a robust intellect, with little capital and no patronage, he established the fortune of two most successful newspapers in Sydney, one a daily and the other a weekly. What is more, Samuel Bennett was in the forefront of those public benefactors whose success, great as it was, was not greater than the fine impression it enabled him to make upon public opinion and Australian journalism.

The fact that such a man "took to" the subject of this biography and gave him his important start in life, as well as his only daughter, who was the crowning happiness of Sir John Henniker Heaton's life, in itself "speaks volumes" in favour of the man who afterwards became "the Member for Australia." vii