The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Renwick, Hon. Arthur
Renwick, Hon. Arthur, M.L.C., B.A., M.D., F.R.C.S., was born in Sydney, and educated at the University of that city, where he graduated B.A. in 1857, being one of the first three on whom the degree was conferred. Having embraced the medical profession, he studied at Edinburgh, and was admitted L.R.C.S. in 1860, and F.R.C.S. in 1861, in which year he received the degree of M.D. from Edinburgh University. He was for some time member for East Sydney and Redfern in the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales; but was defeated for the former constituency in 1882, and for the latter in 1887, in December of which year he was called to the Legislative Council. Dr. Renwick was Secretary for Mines in the Parkes Government from Oct. 1881 to Jan. 1883; and Minister of Public Instruction in that of Sir Patrick Jennings from Feb. 1886 to Jan. 1887. He was Executive Commissioner for New South Wales at the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880, Vice-President of the New South Wales Commission for the Amsterdam Exhibition in 1883, President of that for the Adelaide Jubilee Exhibition of 1887, and in 1892 was appointed Executive Commissioner for New South Wales at Chicago. Dr. Renwick was appointed a Fellow of the Senate of Sydney University in 1872, and Vice-Chancellor in 1889; a member of the Medical Board of New South Wales in 1873; and President of the State Children's Belief Department in 1881. He is President of the Benevolent Society of New South Wales, and President and Honorary Consulting Physician to the Sydney Hospital, and to the Institution for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind. In 1877 Dr. Renwick made a donation of £1000 to the University of Sydney, "to found a Scholarship for Natural Science with especial reference to Comparative Anatomy when a School of Medicine shall have been established." He also gave £100 for the purchase of Leipeius' "Antiquities of Egypt and Æthiopia."