The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Daly, Sir Dominic
Daly, Sir Dominic, sometime Governor of South Australia, was the third son of Dominic Daly by his wife Joanna Harriet, eldest daughter of Joseph Blake, of Ardfry, co. Galway, and sister of the 1st Lord Wallscourt. He was born at Ardfry on August 11th, 1798, and was educated at Oscott Roman Catholic College, near Birmingham. He went to Canada in 1822 as private secretary to Sir Francis Burton, and in 1825 was appointed Assistant-Secretary to the Government of Lower Canada. Two years later he was appointed Provincial Secretary for Lower Canada; and upon the union of the Canadas, in 1840, became Provincial Secretary for the united provinces and member of the Board of Works with a seat in the Council. He retired from the latter post in 1846, and from the former in 1848, but continued to represent the county of Megantic in the Canadian parliament. Subsequently returning to England, he was, in Oct. 1849, placed on the Commission of Inquiry into the the New and Waltham Forest rights. Sir Dominic was Lieut.-Governor of Tobago from 1852 to 1854, when he was appointed Lieut.-Governor of Prince Edward Island, and was knighted by patent in 1856. He left Prince Edward Island in 1859, and assumed office as Governor-in-Chief of South Australia in March 1862. His administration, which only terminated with his death on Feb. 19th, 1868, was highly popular with all classes, and though a Roman Catholic, with the representatives of all the religious bodies. During his régime H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh visited the colony, and the Northern Territory was included within its limits. Sir Dominic married, on May 20th, 1826, Caroline Maria, second daughter of Ralph Gore, of Barrowmount, co. Kilkenny, who survived her husband, and died at Glenelg, South Australia, on July 16th, 1872, aged seventy-one years.