Barry, Sir Redmond
BARRY, SIR REDMOND (1813-1880), British colonial judge, son of Major-General H. G. Barry, of Ballyclough, Co. Cork, was educated at a military school in Kent, and at Trinity College, Dublin, and was called to the Irish bar in 1838. He emigrated to Australia, and after a short stay at Sydney went to Melbourne, with which city he was ever afterwards closely identified. After practising his profession for some years, he became commissioner of the court of requests, and after the creation in 1851 of the colony of Victoria, out of the Port Phillip district of New South Wales, was the first solicitor-general with a seat in the legislative and executive councils. Subsequently he held the offices of judge of the Supreme Court, acting chief-justice and administrator of the government. He represented Victoria at the London International Exhibition of 1862 and at the Philadelphia Exhibition of 1876. He was knighted in 1860 and was created K.C.M.G. in 1877. Sir Redmond Barry was the first person in Victoria to take an interest in higher education, and induced the local government to expend large sums of money upon that object. He was the founder of the university of Melbourne (1853), of which he was the first chancellor, was president of the Melbourne public library (1854), national gallery and museum, and was one of the first to foster the volunteer movement in Australia. To his exertions is due the prosperity of the two institutions with which his memory is identified.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
