John Mercer (Australian pastoralist)

John Henry Mercer (4 January 1823 – 8 December 1891)[1] was a landowner, pastoralist and politician in colonial Victoria (Australia).[2] [3]

Mercer born in Midlothian, Scotland, the son of George Dempster Mercer and Frances Charlotte Reid.[1] Mercer was a pastoralist with his brother George Duncan Mercer and cousin William Drummond Mercer in properties near Geelong.[2][3] Mercer was elected to the district of Grant in the inaugural Victorian Legislative Council on 16 September 1851.[4][5]

Mercer left the Council in December 1852,[2] he became commissioner of insolvent estates and chairman of the water commission.[3] In 1857 Mercer had the Gheringhap freehold mapped as the Dryden estate. Mercer later returned to Scotland where he married Anne Catherine Anstruther on 11 December 1861.[1] Mercer died in Huntingtower, Perthshire on 8 December 1891.[1]

  1. ^ a b c d "John Henry Mercer". Holmes à Court Family History. Archived from the original on 13 August 2014. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
  2. ^ a b c "John Henry Mercer". Re-Member: a database of all Victorian MPs since 1851. Parliament of Victoria. Archived from the original on 23 April 2023. Retrieved 27 August 2022.
  3. ^ a b c Brown, P. L. "Mercer, John Henry (1823–1891)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  4. ^ Sweetman, Edward (1920). Constitutional Development of Victoria, 1851-6. Whitcombe & Tombs Limited. p. 169. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
  5. ^ Labilliere, Francis Peter. Early History of the Colony of Victoria. Vol. II.