State Lib Qld 2 214696 Sir Matthew Nathan, Governor of Queensland, at an official gathering, ca. 1922

Sir Matthew Nathan, Governor of Queensland, at an official gathering, ca. 1922.
Matthew Nathan was born on 3 January 1862 at Paddington in London of Jewish parents. After a career in the British army, Royal Engineers, Matthew Nathan served as a colonial governor in Sierra Leone, the African Gold Coast, Hong Kong, and Natal as well as holding a number of public positions in England and Ireland. In December 1920, as Sir Matthew Nathan, he became the Governor of Queensland, and during his five years in that position promoted British migration to Queensland and research into the Great Barrier Reef. He was Chancellor of the University of Queensland. He was sixty-three years of age when he left Queensland to retire in Somerset, England, where he died in 1939. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery at Willesden, London. He was never married. (Description taken from: Australian Dictionary of Bibliography, 1891 - 1939).