Edward Dewhirst
Edward Dewhirst (30 August 1815 – 4 February 1904) was a well-known South Australian minister of religion and educationist, born in Suffolk, England. His five children were also prominent in business and public life. Early years Edward Dewhirst was born in 1815, the third son of Rev. Charles Dewhirst, Independent (as Congregationalists often styled themselves) minister of Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, England. He was educated there at King Edward VI Grammar School, having classics instruction from the headmaster John William Donaldson. In 1833 he was articled to a surgeon and started studying medicine, but in 1836 sailed for Jamaica in the West Indies where he worked for two or three years, and made the acquaintance of Rev. Matthew Henry Hodge. He suffered from a fever, and returned to England, where he studied to become a Nonconformist minister under John Pye-Smith at Homerton College, Cambridge. In 1849 Dewhirst married Mary Ann, the eldest daughter of the Rev. Thomas Jarvis of Saint Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands. In Australia He emigrated to Victoria in 1853, where he worked as a Baptist minister, moving to South Australia in 1855 as a minister, first Baptist then Congregational at the Ebenezer Place church and filling in as Classics master at J. L. Young's Adelaide Educational Institution. His wife followed, arriving in the Libertas in 1857, accompanied by two sisters. He received a licence to perform marriages in January 1857, but relinquished it in October 1858 when he joined the literary staff of The Register. One of his duties was writing for Farm and Garden, which must have suited him as he was a keen gardener. In August 1860 he was appointed second Inspector of Schools with the South Australian Education Department, where his kindly ways endeared him to both staff and students, although his philosophy of sound learning in a few subjects was at odds with the prevailing trend of less intense teaching over a broad range. When J. A. Hartley, who had similar ideas, was made Inspector-General of Schools he was promoted to Senior Inspector of Schools. In June 1891 he retired to the Adelaide Hills town of Nairne, where he was able to indulge his passions for literature, cricket and gardening, and became a valued member of the community, dying there in 1904. Family life His wife Mary Ann Dewhirst (7 November 1823 – 17 August 1913) was born in Saint Helier where they married. She followed him to Adelaide in 1857. She was for many years deaconess of the North Adelaide Baptist Church and taught at their women's Bible class. They had five children: Edward Nicolle Dewhirst (ca.1851 – 12 September 1935), born at Guernsey, Channel Islands, was manager of the National Bank at Port Adelaide. He was educated at Adelaide Educational Institution and St. Peter's College, went farming at Modbury, worked for the Public Stores Department and worked in Port Darwin for three years, returning in 1875. He had booked his return passage on the , but a delay in issuing his