Jurist and statesman. Educated at Westminster School. Admitted at Middle Temple, 1834; called to the bar, 1838. Went to Sydney in 1838 or 1839; practised law; also did journalistic work: connected with Atlas newspaper. About 1848 returned to England, going back to Australia some time in 1852. Settled in Melbourne; practised law; Q.C. For about two years, proprietor of Melbourne Herald. Member of Victoria Legislative Council, 1852.; member for Melbourne of first Legislative Assembly of Victoria: was twice attorney-general; was minister of justice. For six years agent-general for Victoria in London. K.C.M.G. On his retirement returned to Melbourne, where he died. Distinguished as speaker and lecturer; published several of his speeches and lectures in pamphlet form, e.g., Colonists: Socially, and in Their Relations with the Mother Country, 1859; Victoria: Retrospective & Prospective, 1866; Great Britain and New Guinea, 1875. Some of lectures reprinted in Readings in Melbourne, 1879.

Michie and Dickens were probably acquainted. In a letter of December 1865 to Horne (then in Australia), Dickens mentioned his appreciation of Michie's kindness to young Alfred Dickens, who had emigrated to Australia in May of that year (in Nonesuch Letters, the name appears not as Michie, but as Michael; but see Dickens, Notes and Comments on Certain Writings ... by Richard Henry Horne, privately printed for Thomas J. Wise). One of Michie's lectures mentions Dickens as "the master of our laughter and our tears"; others contain other references to him and to his writings.

Author: Anne Lohrli; © University of Toronto Press, 1971.

Australia Dictionary of Biography