The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Fraser, Hon. Alexander
Fraser, Hon. Alexander, M.L.C., sometime Minister of Public Works, Victoria, was the son of a Scotch farmer, and was born at Aldoura, near Inverness. In 1827 he went to London and five years later sailed for Sydney, N.S.W., in the Rubicon. The ship, however, put in at Hobart Town, Tas., and he decided to stay there, which he did till 1852, when he visited Victoria and decided to settle there. He had been interested in pastoral properties in the colony as far back as 1836, and he now started as an auctioneer in Bendigo, removing the business to Melbourne in 1853. In 1858 he was elected to the Legislative Council for the western province, and was Commissioner of Public Works in the Francis Ministry from June 1872 to May 1874, representing the Government in the Upper House. He was principally known as the plaintiff in an action which he brought against the Melbourne Age in 1878 for damages for a libel contained in an article reflecting on his conduct towards a deceased brother who had died in England in indigent circumstances. He recovered £250. Mr. Fraser died on August 21st, 1888, aged eighty-seven years.