THIS distinguished minister of the Wesleyan Methodist Church was born in New South Wales about the year 1821; entered the ministry in 1843, appointed by the Conference to South Australia in 1862, and arrived here in the same year. He immediately set to work, and evinced great enthusiasm in the training and advancement of the young, and mainly for this object gathered the means of erecting the Lecture Hall attached to the Pirie-street church, Adelaide. He made efforts to found a college for the higher education of colonial youth, but these failed until 1865, when, hearing ​that the present site of the Prince Alfred College was for sale, he rallied the friends of the movement, and the thirteen acres of land were purchased and the fine building which forms so attractive an ornament near the city was erected thereon. Mr. Watsford watched over this undertaking with much interest until it became one of the leading academical institutions of the day. He was elected President of the Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church held in Adelaide in 1871. In 1868 he was transferred by the appointment of the Conference to Victoria, and in 1878 became President of the General Conference held in Sydney. Mr, Watsford has resided in Victoria up to the present time, and sustained with high honours various prominent official positions in the religious body to which he belongs. Among recent commissions committed to his charge, was the deputation to Tonga to endeavour to settle the differences between the government of that island and the society of which he is so prominent a member. A brief account of Prince Alfred College will not here be out of place. It was first practically started on September 18, 1865, when, in accordance with a resolution passed at a meeting held that morning, the site for its erection was bought at auction for £2,750. The persons present at this meeting were the Revs. John Watsford, J. Cope, and N. Bennett, Messrs. Jno. Colton, T. G. Waterhouse, G. P. Harris, T. Padman, Wm. Khodes, James Scott, Wm. L. Roach, and G. W. Cotton. After a considerable amount of preliminary work the foundation-stone of the edifice was laid on November 7, 1867, by H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh, who very graciously consented to perform the ceremony. His Excellency Sir Dominic Daly, the then Governor of the colony, heartily concurring in the request of the committee, the school was opened in January, 1869, and the central College buildings were inaugurated by His Excellency Sir James Fergusson, Bart, in June of the same year. The first head-master was Mr. Samuel Fiddian, RA., ​of Cambridge, under whose tutorial control, followed by that of Mr. J. A. Hartley, B.A., B.Sc, of London, and the present head-master, Mr. F. Chappie, B.A., B.Sc, of London, aided by a numerous and influential committee, the attendance at the College has steadily increased till it has reached some 400 pupils; and more than a thousand of its alumni are taking positions in almost every department of business life.