John Mark Davies

Sir John Mark Davies KCMG (8 February 1840  12 September 1919) was a British-born Australian politician.

Born in Halstead, Essex, England in 1840, Davies was the fifth eldest of the six boys and six girls of Ebenezer Davies and Ruth Bartlett. Two of the younger boys were educated at Geelong Grammar School. John was articled in 1852 and in 1863 was admitted to the Supreme Court of Victoria as a solicitor. He worked as a partner in a law firm for some years, and was President of the Law Institute of Victoria in 1885–86; he was made the group's first honorary life member in 1919.[1]

Political Career

Davies served in the Victorian Legislative Council from 1889 to 1919, representing first the South Yarra Province (1889–1895)[2] then Melbourne Province (1899-1919).[3] and was Minister for Health for two months in 1891. He was the Solicitor-General under both Allan McLean (1899–1900) and William Irvine (1902–1903), and later Irvine's Minister for Public Instruction (1903) and Attorney-General (1903–1904). Under Thomas Bent, he was both Attorney-General (1903–1909) and Solicitor-General (1904-1909), although John Mackey was briefly Solicitor-General in 1908. Davies was the President of the Victorian Legislative Council from 1910 to 1919.[3] He resigned from the Parliament on 6 July 1919, after suffering a stroke and dies a few months later aged 79.[4]

Honours

Davies was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in January 1918. He was given a state funeral.[5]

Residence

The home he had purchased in 1892, Valentine's Mansion, became the site of Malvern Grammar School (now the Malvern Campus of Caulfield Grammar School), and was placed on the Victorian Heritage Register in 1975.[6] The Davies family lived in Valentines until 1919 when they moved to Little Valentines in Wattletree Road, Glen Iris.

gollark: It would be more efficient to directly burn the food or something.
gollark: Obviously the best way to produce power is to disassemble Mercury with von Neumann machines and turn it into vast arrays of solar powers and beamed power transmitters pointing at Earth.
gollark: They are, by nature, installed on random houses by people without years of training, and if you were to install them only on dedicated facilities with professional installers they would cost unreasonable amounts.
gollark: It can't be, though.
gollark: This is why we should replace space stations with giant very thick-walled balloons. I'm sure you can ship balloon material from the moon or something.

References

  1. Law Institute of Victoria (2006). History of the Law Institute of Victoria Archived 23 August 2006 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 11 June 2006.
  2. Mennell, Philip (1892). "Davies, Hon. John Mark" . The Dictionary of Australasian Biography. London: Hutchinson & Co via Wikisource.
  3. "Sir John Mark Davies". re-member: a database of all Victorian MPs since 1851. Parliament of Victoria. Retrieved 12 February 2019.
  4. Freeman, R D. "Davies, Sir John Mark (1840–1919)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Melbourne University Press. ISSN 1833-7538 via National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
  5. "Funeral of Sir John Davies". The Argus. 15 September 1919. p. 6. Retrieved 17 February 2019 via National Library of Australia.
  6. Michael Macgeorge (2004). The Lives of Valentines. Michael Macgeorge. ISBN 0-646-43710-0.

 

Victorian Legislative Council
4th member added Member for South Yarra Province
1899–1895
With: 3 others
Succeeded by
George Godfrey
Preceded by
James Service
Member for Melbourne Province
1889–1919
With: 3 others (1889-1904)
1 other
(1904-1919) 
Succeeded by
Sir Henry Weedon
Preceded by
Sir Henry Wrixon
President of the Legislative Council
1910 - 1919
Succeeded by
Sir Walter Manifold
Political offices
Preceded by
Sir Henry Cuthbert
Solicitor-General of Victoria
Dec 1899 - Nov 1900
Succeeded by
Agar Wynne
Preceded by
Agar Wynne
Solicitor-General of Victoria
Jun 1902 - Feb 1903
Succeeded by
William Irvine
Preceded by
William Irvine
Attorney-General of Victoria
1903-1909
Solicitor-General of Victoria

1904-1908 & 1908-1909
With: John Mackey as Solicitor-General
Feb-Sep 1908 
Succeeded by
James Brown
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.