Robert Ramsay - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

ROBERT RAMSAY (1842-1882), Australian statesman, was a native of Hawick, Roxburghshire, but his parents emigrated to Victoria when he was a child of four, and he was educated at the Scottish college in Melbourne. He studied law at Melbourne University, and subsequently became a member of a well-known firm of solicitors in the city. He married in 1868 Isabella Catherine Urquhart, and in 1870 entered the assembly for East Bourke in the Conservative and free trade interest. He was a member of the government of James Goodall Francis in 187274. He was subsequently postmaster-general (1874-75) in the administration of George Biscoe Kerferd; he held the same office in conjunction with the ministry of education (1875-77) under Sir James M'Culloch; and for a short term in 1880 he was chief secretary and minister of education in the first administration of James Service. He died on the 23rd of May 1882.