Nicol Stenhouse
Nicol Drysdale Stenhouse (27 June 1806 – 18 February 1873) was a Scottish-born lawyer, writer and literary patron in colonial Australia.[1]
Biography
[edit]Stenhouse was born in Coldstream, Berwickshire, Scotland[1] and went on to become a lawyer and a great lover of literature.[2] He was clerk to Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet when the latter was practising as an advocate in Edinburgh.[2] He was also a friend of Thomas De Quincey.[2] Other associates in Edinburgh include Professor John Wilson and Professor Patrick Campbell MacDougall.
He emigrated to New South Wales, arriving in October 1839, and practised for many years as an attorney and solicitor in Sydney.[2] He was a patron and mentor to many needy and struggling literary men in Sydney. Among the writers he assisted with money, encouragement, the loan of books from his large library and in other ways were Daniel Deniehy, Richard Rowe, Frank Fowler, Charles Harpur and Henry Kendall.[3]
He was on the committee of the Sydney Mechanic’s School of Arts (1855-73) and served as its president (1867-73), a committee-man on the Australian Library and Literary Institution (1857-69) and on the Balmain Municipal Council and was appointed its chairman in 1862. Not long before his death he was, on the motion of Dr. Charles Badham, appointed an examiner in the Faculty of Law and a member of the senate of the University of Sydney. He succeeded Dr. John Woolley as president of the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts, and held the position from 1867 to 1873.[2] Stenhouse died on 18 February 1873 in Balmain, New South Wales.[1] He was survived by his wife, Margaretta, who he had married in Sydney in 1846, five daughters and two sons.
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Jordens, Ann-Mari. "Stenhouse, Nicol Drysdale (1806–1873)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
- ^ a b c d e Mennell, Philip (1892). . The Dictionary of Australasian Biography. London: Hutchinson & Co – via Wikisource.
- ^ Jourdens, Ann-Mari (1979). The Stenhouse Circle: Literary life in mid-nineteenth century Sydney (First ed.). Melbourne: MUP. p. various. ISBN 0522841767.
