THE LATE SIR JAMES FERGUSSON.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8372, 5 March 1907, Page 6

THE LATE SIR JAMES FERGUSSON.

(From Our London Correspondent)

LONDON,. January 25

Of the notabilities, who have fallen victims to the Kingston earthquake, Sir James Fergusson will be best remembered in your part of the world; he having been Governor of the colony in 1873, and having a son, Captain J. A. Fergusson, married to a daughter of Mr T. W. Wililams, of Wellington. Sir James Fergusson inherited the title and estates of an old and honoured Scottish family in the Western Lowlands, his father, Sir Charles Dalrymple Fergusson, being the fifth baronet of Kilkerran, in Ayrshire, and his mothei*, Helen Boyle, daughter of David, Lord Boyle, Lord Justice General, and an intimate friend of Sir Walter Scott's. He was'born in Edinburgh, in the year 1832. He went to Rugby, and to University College, Oxford. In 1851, having then become a baronet on his father's death, he joined the Grenadier Guards, and he had served for three years when the Crimean War broke out. He was on active service throughout the whole of the campaign of 1854-1855, being present at Alma and Inkermann, where he was wounded, and during the siege of Sevastopol, down to its ending. H e was elected M.P. for Ayrshire while at the front, but was thrown out in 1857. Two years later he regained the seat, and held it during the Parliament of 1865. In 1866 he became Under-Secretary for India and UnderSecretary for the Home Department. He was then appointed to the Governorship of South Australia, and was transferred in the same capacity to New Zealand in 1873, but resigned in a couple of years. From 1880 to 1885 he filled the post of Governor of Bombay. In 1885 he was elected M.P. for North East Manchester, but was defeated by one of the Labour Party about a year ago. In 1885 he became Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and in 1891 PostmasterGeneral,, Among the commercial offices he has held may be mentioned the directorship of the Caledonian, Glasgow and South Western, and London and North Western Railways, and the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, and the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company and the National Telephone Company. Sir James Fergusson , married in 1859 Lady Edith Christian, second daughter and co-heir of the Marquis of Dalhousie, the Captain Fergusson mentioned above being the second son of that marriage; in 1878 he married a daughter of Mr Richman, of Warnbunga, South Australia; and, thirdly, in 1893, he married Isabella Elizabeth, daughter of the late Rev. T. Twydew, and widow of Mr C. H. Hoare, of Morden, Surrey.