The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Lyne, Hon. William John
Lyne, Hon. William John, M.L.A., Minister of Public Works, New South Wales, is the eldest son of John Lyne, of Gala, Tas., by his marriage with Lilias Cross Carmichael, daughter of James Hume, of Edinburgh, Scotland. He was born at Apslawn, Tas., on April 6th, 1844. When twenty years of age he went to Queensland, and was amongst the first to take up squatting country on the Gulf of Carpentaria. Returning to Tasmania, he was clerk to the Glamorgan Municipal Council till 1875, when he proceeded to New South Wales and commenced squatting pursuits on the river Murray, near Albury. Mr. Lyne has been a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly since 1880 and sits for the Hume. He was Secretary for Public Works in the first Dibbs Ministry from Nov. 2nd to Dec. 21st, 1885, and in the Jennings Government from Feb. 1886 to Jan. 1887. He was Secretary for Lands in the second Dibbs Ministry from Jan. to March 1889, and on the return to power of Mr. Dibbs in Oct. 1891 he was again appointed Secretary for Public Works. Mr. Lyne married on June 27th, 1870, Martha Coates, eldest daughter of Edward Carr Shaw, of Glamorgan, Tas.