OBITUARY.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 March 1921, Page 5

OBITUARY.

SIR JAMES PRENDERGAST, K.B. FORMERLY CHIEF JUSTICE. In his ninety-fifth year, Sir James Prendergast, K. 8., formerly Chief Justice of New Zealand, passed away' on Sunday at his residence, Wellington. The secontr son of the late Mr. Michael Prendergast, Q.C., Sir James Prendergast was born in London on December 10, 1826. He was educated at St. Paul’s School, London, and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. degree in 1849. Going ( out to Australia at the time of the gold rush, he spent some years in Victoria at the gold diggings, and was at one time Clerk of the Court there. He then returned to England, and was called to the Bar iij, April, 1856. Having practised for some years as a special pleader in England, he came out to New Zealand in the ship Chili, arriving in Otago in November, 1862, and was at once admitted to the New Zealafid bar. The first ease he appeared in was one, for Mr., afterwards Sir Julius, Vogel. In 1863, Sir James was appointed Crown Prosecutor at Dunedin and Provincial Solicitor for the Province of Otago. In 1865, he was appointed to the Upper House, and was made non-politica) Solicitor-General. In 1867 he retired from the Upper House, and became nonpolitical Attorney-General; and on April 1. 1875, he was appointed Chief Justice, being knighted in 1881. As Chief Justice, Sir James Prenderfast several times held the position of Acting-Governor and Administrator of the colony; and it was during one of his terms as Acting-Governor that the campaign against Parihaka and Te Whitj, resulting in the arrest of Te Whiti, was initiated. The last occasion on which he was appointed ActingGovernor was in February, 1897, on the departure of the retiring Governor, the Earl of Glasgow, for the Old Country. Sir James Prendergast retired in May, 1899, and had since lived privately in Wellington, taking little part in public affairs, except that the late Rt. Hon. R. J. Seddon appointed him one of the Government directors of the Bank of New Zealand. He was also for some years a director of the Wellington Trust and Loan Investment Company and of the Colonial Mutual Insurance Company. He was married, but his wife predeceased him in 1889. He left no children, his nearest relatives being Mr. Henry Hall (of Messrs. Hall and Knight, barristers and solicitors. Wellington), Mrs. Leonard Reid (Wellington), Mrs. Booth (Nelson), and Dr. Prendergast Knight (Wellington).