Richard Colonna-Close

In 1876, he was officiating in churches at Chinnor and Begbroke in Oxfordshire, when he was found guilty, at the Oxford Assizes, of indecently assaulting a 14-year-old girl.

[6] The sentencing judge noted that it was a premeditated attempt to inveigle the victim to his own home to seduce her, but the absence of extreme violence made it a “medium case”.

[9] At one parish meeting, held in March 1879, a note from Close was delivered by an intermediary stating: “The Rev.

"[10] By the end of April 1879, he was reduced to advertising a Church of England service in the Temperance Hall in Edward Street.

[11] Moving to Melbourne, he commenced studying law and, in 1881, became the editor of “The Federated Australian” which claimed to be “a weekly summary of the pastoral, agricultural, political, social, scientific and sporting affairs of the whole of Australia”.

[12] An application for admission as a student at law in New South Wales in 1880 was refused because he had not passed two examinations in any faculty at the University of Sydney.

At the time it was noted that he had “made himself prominent in the legal and literary circles of most portions of the old world, and commenced a new career in the new with credentials of superlative character”.

In politics Close was an unsuccessful candidate for several seats in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly: for the electorate of Yass Plains in 1885,[17] and 1886;[18] for Randwick in 1894;[19] and Leichhardt in 1898.

In jovial company, Sir Henry often insisted on the telling of a story about Close's courtroom oratory: At the Bathurst Court House, Close had exhorted the jury to acquit his client, painting a picture of his loving father and devoted mother seated together in their little English cottage oblivious to his plight.