DEATH OF SIR CHARLES SLADEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 6948, 23 February 1884, Page 5

DEATH OF SIR CHARLES SLADEN.

[reuter's tblegbam.] ■Melboubne, February 22." Sir Chas. Slade.v, M.L.C., who hae been ill for some time past, died to-day, aged 68. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Sir Charles Sladen was the necond son of Mr. John Baker Sladen, of Ripple Court, county of Kent, and was born in 1816. He was educated at Shrewsbury and Trinity Ball, Cambridge, and graduated in law in 1837;:.'Hejmarried in 1840, and two years' afterwards sailed for Australia, arriving in Port Phillip in February, 1842 He practised as : .an : attorney in Geelong until 1854, when he; retired from business. In December of the same year he was offered by Sir Charles Hotham (then Governor) the post of Acting Colonial Treasurer, in the place of Captain LoDsdale, then absent on leave. He was Treasurer in the first Ministry under the new constitution, formed by the late Mr. Haines, , In 1855, when he was elected one of the members for Geelong. At the firat general election under the new Constitution in 1557, he again sought election for Geelong, but was defeated, and was not in Parliament agsin till lS6i, when he was elected to a vacaDt seat in the Legislative Council for the Western Province. In May, IS6S, during a protracted political crisis (»rißing out of the tack of a Customs Duties Bill to the annual Appropriation Bill in 1865, and at last culminating in the inclusion in the annual Appropriation Bill for 1807 of a grant of £20,000 to Lady Darling, the wife of the late Governor, Sir Charles Darling, who had been , recalled by the Secretary of State) he accepted office as Chief Secretary.' His Ministry, however, only retained office till July 11 of the same year. In August of that year the term tor which he had been elected member 'or the Western Province expired, and he did nr/c seek re-eler.tion. In 1876 he was again elected without a contest for the same province, which he continued to represent until his death. He was regarded by both friends and opponents as a high-minded and able politician.