Hearn was born in
Belturbet,
County Cavan, Ireland, the son of Reverend William Edward Hearn (a
curate and later a
vicar) and Henrietta Hearn (née Reynolds). He was the second of seven sons in the family. Hearn was educated at
Portora Royal School in
Enniskillen, Ireland and later studied at
Trinity College Dublin from 1842. There he was highly successful in his study of
classics,
logic and ethics, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1847. Following his studies in arts, Hearn also studied law, at Trinity College and later at
King's Inns in Dublin and
Lincoln's Inn in London, and was admitted to the
Irish Bar in 1853. Hearn's teaching career began in 1849, when he was selected as a professor of
Ancient Greek at the
Queen's College, Galway, which had been established a few years earlier. In 1854, a London-based committee of the newly established University of Melbourne selected Hearn as one of four original professors of the university. Hearn was to teach subjects including modern history, modern literature and political science in the
Faculty of Arts, although at times during his career he also taught classics. Hearn moved to
Melbourne, Australia in 1855, where he took up residence in the rooms provided on the university campus. Hearn's students at Melbourne included
Alfred Deakin,
H. B. Higgins,
Isaac Isaacs,
Alexander Sutherland,
Samuel Alexander In January 1859, Hearn stood as a candidate for the
Parliament of Victoria, in a by-election for a seat in the
Victorian Legislative Assembly, he was embarrassingly unsuccessful. The university's
Chancellor,
Redmond Barry, was not pleased with Hearn's attempts to enter parliament, and as a result the university council passed a rule prohibiting professors from standing for election, and even from joining any political group, a rule that would last more than a century. Hearn was admitted to the
Victorian Bar in 1860, although he only occasionally practised as a
barrister. In 1873, Hearn was appointed as the first
Dean of the newly created
Faculty of Law, lecturing in subjects such as constitutional law. In 1874 and 1877 he again stood unsuccessfully for parliament, evading the ban on professors running for election on the basis that as a dean, he had lost his professorial title. In 1878 he was finally elected to the
Victorian Legislative Council, for
Central Province. Hearn was regarded as a good politician, who held conservative views but was less concerned with party politics than he was with the technical business of making legislation, and by 1882 he was regarded as a leader in the council. In May 1886, Hearn was elected as Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, however he lost his position on the university's council at the elections in October that year when his term expired and he was not re-elected, and as such he was only able to serve one year as Chancellor. Also in 1886 he was made a
Queen's Counsel, in recognition of his academic work, since he rarely practised law. ==Works==