Departures of note

Richard Colonna-Close, born Richard Close in 1836 in Hexham, Northumberland, was a man of many careers: teacher, clergyman, lawyer, and politician. His life took a dramatic turn in 1876 when, while officiating at churches in Oxfordshire, he was convicted at the Oxford Assizes of indecently assaulting a 14-year-old girl. The judge called it a premeditated attempt to lure the victim to his home, but sentenced him to 12 months' hard labour as a 'medium case'. After release, he emigrated to Australia, leaving his family behind; his son, born in 1878, later became a priest like his father.

Before his conviction, Close had a varied early career. He apprenticed as an attorney, served as a lieutenant in the Northumberland Light Infantry, and in 1859 became a professor of English at the University of St Petersburg, where he tutored three younger sons of Tsar Alexander II, including the future Alexander III. He claimed to have been granted the 13th rank of Russian nobility. Returning to England, he was ordained in the Church of England in 1866 and served curacies in several parishes. He enrolled at St Edmund's Hall, Oxford, in 1872 but never graduated, despite later claims of a Master of Arts. He briefly headed Woodstock Grammar School in 1875.

In Australia, Close began as Incumbent of Toowong in Brisbane in 1878, but soon lost parishioners' confidence amid 'charges against his moral character'. At a parish meeting in 1879, he sent a note threatening to horsewhip anyone who spoke slanderously of him. By April, he was reduced to advertising services in a Temperance Hall. Moving to Melbourne, he studied law and edited 'The Federated Australian'. He was refused admission as a law student in New South Wales in 1880 for lacking Sydney University examinations, despite passing two years of a Bachelor of Laws at Melbourne. He was finally admitted to the Sydney bar in 1882, described as 'a flowery orator with an eccentric taste in clothes'. He was disbarred at his own request in 1899 to become a solicitor, then readmitted to the bar in 1900.

From around 1884 to 1895, Close lived in relative isolation at 'Point Colonna' on cliffs near Coogee. He ran unsuccessfully for several seats in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly—Yass Plains in 1885 and 1886, Randwick in 1894, and Leichhardt in 1898—and also lost a bid for the first Australian Senate in 1901. His political interests included the Women's Liberal League, federation, and old-age pensions. A friend of Sir Henry Parkes, Close was remembered for a courtroom speech at Bathurst in which he painted a touching picture of his client's loving parents in an English cottage; the client was convicted, and the judge noted the parents were serving sentences in Bathurst Gaol nearby. Close died suddenly of a heart attack at his Paddington home on 27 September 1905 and was buried in Randwick General Cemetery.