Henry Laurie ‘studied literature and mental and moral philosophy at the University of Edinburgh’ from 1856 to 1860. Ill health led him to migrate first to Canada and then, in 1864, to Victoria.
Settling in Warrnambool, Laurie ‘pursued his literary interests as a member of the Shakespearian and Western Caledonian societies and as a contributor to Richard Osburne's Warrnambool Examiner’.
In October 1867, Laurie took up a five-year lease of the Warrnambool Examiner, in partnership with printer and publisher William Fairfax. (J. F. Archibald was apprenticed to the newspaper at this time.) At the end of that period, Laurie and Fairfax established the Warrnambool Standard, with Laurie becoming sole proprietor from 1877. The Standard was so successful, it absorbed the Examiner in 1880.
In 1882, having sold the Standard, Laurie took up the position of lecturer in logic and philosophy at the University of Melbourne and, in 1886, ‘became the first professor of mental and moral philosophy in Australia’. Among his students at the university were ‘E. Morris Miller, (Sir) Walter Murdoch and (Sir) John Latham’.
In later years, some of Laurie’s poems were published in Pro Patria et Regina (1901). Among his other publications was Plato in English Literature (1921).
Source: Smith, Ann B. 'Laurie, Henry (1837–1922).' Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University
Sighted: 14/11/2013
