People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, 24 August 1911, Page 1645

People We Hear About

The Times announces that Mr. Hilaire Belloc has been appointed head of the English Department of the East London College (University of London). Who invented the phrase ‘Home Rule’? is the subject of an article in the Dublin Independent by Mr. Daniel Crilly. Isaac Butt and Rev. Professor Galbraith have been credited with being the first to use the words. ; Mr. Crilly, however, goes further back— 1858— points out that in an article in The Celt, in July of that year, Dr. Robert Cane, of Kilkenny, used the words precisely in the same sense as that which attaches itself to them in the political strife of to-day. Viscount Llandaff, who presided recently over the annual general meeting of the Catholic Union of Great Britain, is in his eighty-six'th year. He was born in Ceylon, and received his education at the Universities of Paris and London. His father, Mr. Henry Matthews, was a Judge of the Supreme Court in Ceylon, and his memory is kept green as the . author of The Diary of an Invalid. Previous to his elevation to the peerage in 1895, Lord Llandaff gave many years’ work to the House of Commons, where for six, years he was Home Secretary. He is of ancient Welsh descent. Mr. T. A. Browne, or ‘ Rolf Boldrewood,’ to give him the name by which he is best known,, celebrated on August 6 his 85th birthday. The famous author of Robbery Under Arms was only four years old when, with his father, Captain Sylvester Browne, formerly of the East India Company’s service, he arrived in New South Wales. The family became permanently settled in Sydney, first in Macquarie-place and later at Enmore, which suburb took its name from Captain Browne’s house. Mr. Browne was one of the pioneer pastoralists in the Port Fairy district of Victoria, and owned several stations, both in this and in the southern State. Discouraged by the droughts, however, he finally abandoned pastoral pursuits in 1869. v A year later he became a police magistrate and warden of goldfields in New South Wales, and filled these positions until 1895. Since 1888 he has written nearly twenty novels, but it is always as the creator of Captain Starlight, the gentlemanly bushranger, that he will-be best remembered.

In the course of ' ‘ An Impression’ of the Coronation, a writer in the British Weekly pays the following tribute to the Earl Marshal: —* The great black beard of the Duke of Norfolk belongs now to British history. It' will be difficult to picture regal : ceremonial without it. When I first looked down upon the blue carpeted steps that led from the choir to the throne, the Earl Marshal, in his accustomed splendor of raiment, with his accustomed vivacity, was superintending, the distribution of morocco-bound orders of service, while a very self-possessed attendant in a dust-coat was attending, to the working of a vacuum cleaner. Throughout the long hour the Duke was indefatigable, irresistible, moving quickly up and down the steps, now on this side, now on that, never hurried, always just in time to prevent a mistake. He waved a hand, and mighty things happened. He must have covered miles in his journeyings to and from between the doors' and the theatre.” . . . * The Earl Marshal of. England is a supreme organiser, and he has been richly endowed with the gift of appearing comfortable in an amazing uniform.’