nautical instructor, and took much interest in scientific matters. During a portion of his colonial career he was connected with the Survey Department, and it was a widely prevalent impression that Superintendent Latrobe had promised that Groves should be the first official head of the Victorian Observatory, a promise which, if given, was never fulfilled. For several years he published weather tables, which were looked forward to with no small interest and confidence; and to give him his due he was more fortunate than more modern meteorological Solons in prognosticating the good and bad temper of the atmosphere. Saxby, a once well-known weather seer, essayed the prophetic in England, and his speculations made a profound impression upon Groves, who thenceforth devoted much attention to the newly promulgated theory. Saxby foretold stormy and rainy weather during certain months in the year 1859, which came to pass. He ascribed these results to the action of the moon on the earth. Groves noticed this, and when the following year wheeled round, and the moon was in a similar position as in the previous year, the same results did not follow. He then searched for other influences, and found that when certain of the planets and the moon were in conjunction with the earth the same effects always followed, and on this he based his calculations for a weather table, which was exceedingly correct, for on the average eight out of ten predictions fell out as advised. It was his opinion that in the future the state of the weather would be as well known before as after. He died about the year 1878, and his memory is held in esteem by many of his old pupils who are now widely scattered.
Groves had for a time as assistant an ex-Commissioned Officer of the 29th Regiment, a warm-hearted, able man. He was a Mr. Champion, who, after selling out of the service, arrived in Sydney, and fancied that by buying sheep and driving them overland to Port Phillip, he should make a fortune. He bought and drove the sheep, but instead of filling a big purse, he burned his fingers. Regularly stumped, he was one day strolling over Batman's Hill. Captain Buckley, formerly a comrade in arms, recognized him, and learning the straits to which his old chum was reduced, promised to do his best to billet Champion in some way. Buckley was Chief Clerk in the Public Works Office, and did all in his power, though nothing turned up save the ushership at the Groves Academy.
In 1846 a prospectus was issued for the erection of a "Port Phillip School," the teachers to be of the Protestant religion, and the education a high class one. It was to be a proprietary concern, the funds to be raised by the issue of seventy shares for £1887 10s., but it did not take.
A Wesleyan Grammar School was mooted in August, 1847, for which purpose a Provisional Committee was nominated. It was to be founded upon one hundred £5 shares, not transferable unless with consent of the management, and no person to hold more than five shares. But it shared the fate of many another good intention.
The arrival of the Episcopalian and Roman Catholic Bishops (Drs. Perry and Goold) in 1848 supplied a stimulus to the sectarian schools of their respective denominations. The systems and the teachers were improved, and the Church of England Diocesan Grammar School was one of the consequences.
In 1848-9, there was a tolerably efficient establishment in South Swanson Street, under the mastership of Mr. Edward Butterfield. The teacher was an able though not over personally popular individual, and the speculation not proving as payable as anticipated, he abandoned the business, and afterwards left the colony. Well for him perhaps that he did so, for in the course of years he attained a position he never even dreamed of in Port Phillip, for having passed on to the territory now known as Queensland, he filled the distinguished post of Minister of Education there.[1]
- ↑ I have received a communication from a resident at St. Kilda, containing the following reference to my remarks upon the Butterfield family:— "'Garryowen will be interested to know that Mr. Edward Butterfield, the Swanston Street dominie of thirty-six years ago, did not become Minister of Education in Queensland. After editing an Ipswich paper for a few years, he became Secretary to the old Board of Education in that colony, and held the post until the Department of Public Instruction was formed. Mr. C. J. Graham, at present brewing in New South Wales, then became Under-Secretary, and Mr. Butterfield was transferred to the office of First Clerk. This post he held till he died. Mr. Joseph Butterfield is editor of the Queenslander. These remarks are not of much general consequence, but 'Garryowen' is working so hard to have his particulars exact, that he may like to see them." The information relative to the Butterfield brothers was supplied to me by a personal friend of theirs, now resident in Melbourne, [The Author.]
