BIOGRAPHICAL.
THE LATE J. B. BRADSHAW.
The late Mr James Benn Bradshaigh-Bradshaw was born in England, at Barton Blount, Lancashire. His father, General Bradshaw, was related to, and connected with the Bradshaws, Bradshaighs, and Benns, of Lancashire, Cheshire, Derby, and Tipperary.
Young Bradshaw passed through the East Indian Company's College, Haileybury, near Hertford, and in due course entered the Indian Civil Service, which, however, he soon left from declining health. For several years after his life was a most eventful one. Thoroughly an settled he was in the humour for travel, common to so many, and was, as so few are, able to gratify his humour to the full.
During those years of travel he went through the Empire of Brazil and several of the states of South America. He also visited the African Islands, including Bourbon, Seychelles, Madagascar, Isle of France, and voyaged as far as St. Helena and Ascension Islands.
The Continent of Africa next tempted the traveller, and he journeyed inward from South Cape Point across the Great Fish river, through Kaffrarea to the missionary stations of the Revs. Robert Moffatt and Dr Livingstone, with whose families he was intimately associated.
His attention was next drawn to the Dutch republics, and he passed through the territory since widely known as the centre of the diamond and gold fields of recent discovery. During his travels in Africa he made several successful trading ventures between the continent and the islands.
His African experience was not confined to peaceable pursuits, for, on the outbreak of the fifth Kaffir war, about 1850, he became in turn war-office agent, recruiting officer, and commander of a company. Sir Harry Smith, an old friend of General Bradshaw's, was then Governor of the Cape, and for the second and third time took an active part in the suppression of the rebellion,
In 1852 the Governors frontier policy not being approved, he was recalled, and succeeded for two years by General Cathcart, who, in 1854, was himself replaced by Sir George Grey, K.C.B., from New Zealand. Sir Harry Smith had, however, left little to be done by his successors, except to gradually build up a more satisfactory relationship between the Kaffir tribes and the colonists.
Leaving Natal when his leader was recalled, Mr Bradshaw went to the Isle of France, remaining only a short time
In 1855 he landed in Victoria, and at once, like everyone else of even less travelled instinct, went straight to the diggings. The time was one of great excitement, and Bradshaw threw himself into the pursuit in full sympathy with the intoxication of the moment. He kept to practical mining for about four years. He followed it up in the deep, wet sinking of Creswick Greek and Ballarat district and worked in and followed every new rush, in some instances being very successful.
His attention was early drawn to quartz mining, upon which he entered before any quartz machinery was in the country, being interested in claims on Eagle Hawk, Mariner's Reef, and at New Bendigo. At New Bendigo, with the Roskrages, he was very successful. It will be seen from this that Mr Bradshaw's practical mining experience was very large.
In 1856 be was persuaded to commence the scientific study of auriferous drifts, and the occurrence of lodes and veins and their qualities. He opened an assay office at Castlemaine as assayer and gold buyer, under the style of Cameron and Bradshaw; subsequently he opened at Tarrangower and Maryborough. At Maryborough he sold the business to the Bank of Australasia, taking office with the bank as assayer and gold buyer, and before leaving having a temporary charge.
While in Australia his attention was drawn to Otagan gold, and he wrote to the then Superintendent, Sir John Richardson, stating that it was worth by assay £3 17s to £4 1s per ounce, and pointed out that by the establishment of a Government assay office, the price of gold — which was then only £3 10s — would be raised. Doubts were, however, cast upon the scheme by his Honor's advisers.
Major Richardson (not quite discouraged) sent several thousand ounces Home for assay and sale, and was able to declare at a public meeting that the price realised was £3 17s to £3 19s, after paying all expenses — proving the accuracy of Mr Bradshaw's opinion.
In 1870, when settled in New Zealand, he again wrote to the Superintendent, Mr Macandrew, recommending the scheme of a Government assay office, in connection with a school of mines ; and also to Sir Julius Vogel. Tbe same policy he urged upon the energetic Superintendent of Canterbury, Mr Moorhouse, coincident with the West Coast discoveries. Unfortunately for New Zealand this good advice was systematically neglected. Influences were all at work, representing too large interests, to give the plan a trial. The proposal was published in the Mount Ida Chronicle in January 1874, and its value pointed out.
Upon Mr Bradshaw's arrival in Otago he went to the Dunstan, and brought down 3000oz of gold — before an escort was established — on horseback, to Waikouaiti, and shipped it thence, by steamer, to Dunedin.
At the first of the rush to the Lakes he went to Queenstown, He there opened a gold office, and received deposits for the Union Bank of Australasia. At Queenstown he began his connection with the New Zealand press, editing the Mail for nine months, and advocating the cancellation of the pastoral lease held by Mr Rees, and the withdrawal of the delegated powers from the Provincial Government.
At that time a petition for the withdrawal of powers was got up and signed by 8000 persons. Rees' lease having been cancelled for commonage purposes, he next strongly objected to the proposed sale of the commonage in 1864, in runs of smaller sizes; the objection was for a time successful.
He also corresponded with the Colonist, Telegraph, and Mail newspapers, advocating a higher price for gold, the reduction of duty, and the abolition of all special taxation and monopolies. The Union Bank opened a branch in the Queenstown Gold Office, but the management objecting to the political writings of the agent, he opened another office. In 1866 he left Queenstown, and in the same year stood for the Provincial Council for the goldfields, but was defeated by Mr Mouat. In the following year he stood for the Assembly to represent the goldfields towns, and was returned, beating Mr D. F. Main.
In the same year, assisted by Mr Haughton, he had a hand in the concession made for the purchase of 50 acres on goldfields held under agricultural lease, under the act of 1860. In 1867 he was appointed by Mr Stafford, Ministerial Agent, to take charge of the goldfields.
The resumption of the delegated powers caused a great stir, A plebiscite was taken, public meetings were held, and the unhappy Ministerial Agent was alternately burnt and drowned in effigy.
Mr Vogel, the great advocate for the preservation of provincial rights intact, stamped the country with paid agents, whom he placed in charge of the courthouses, at the expense to the province of several thousand pounds. At the conclusion of this Parliamentary session, when a truce was patched up, the Ministerial Agent's appointment ceased.
Meanwhile, on his persistent protest, the Wakatipu runs were, by order of Mr Stafford, withdrawn again from sale and put back into the commonage, a proceeding which offended the provincial authorities. It will be known to our readers that this disputed Wakatipu country was for the most part sold in smaller leaseholds by the Turnbull-Bastings Government in 1872-3, and many think, advantageously, to the Government, but not in the interests of the people. Mr Bradshaw's private secretary, Mr Felix Wakefield, the brother of the founder of the colony, was provided with another appointment. Mr Bradshaw did not seek for himself any compensative office, although no doubt his acceptance of the temporary appointment injured his political prospects very seriously.
In 1868 Mr Haughton introduced the Road Board Endowment Act, which, amended advantageously in committee with Mr Bradshaw's assistance, provided for a better act for outlying districts.
In 1868 his technical knowledge of mining again stood the colony in good stead, and resulted in some excellent reports on the occurrence of the quartz veins then being discovered in Auckland. In 1870, the goldfields towns being abolished and put into districts, Mr Bradshaw was retained for Waikaia, and shortly after, in his absence, was returned to the Provincial Council for Mount Bengor. When the newly elected Council met the Government in power were displaced, and Mr Bradshaw joined Mr Reid's Government as Treasurer.
The new Executive had a tough battle to fight; the Treasury owed £97,000 to the banks, money was tight, and the agricultural interest was almost bankrupt. The Secretary and his Treasurer undertook to carry on the Government at salaries reduced to £400, holding two offices apiece. The Superintendent's salary was also cut down, to £800.
After 20 months in office Mr Reid joined the short lived Stafford Government as Minister for Works; the Executive accordingly had to go, leaving the Treasury with a credit balance at the bank. The retiring Treasurer was pressed by the Superintendent to join the new Executive, but refused.
On the appeal to the province Mr Bradshaw was not returned for Mount Benger on account of the Moa Flat sale, for which he was most unjustly blamed.
In 1873 he succeeded in carrying through the Assembly an act called "The Resumption of Land for Mining Purposes." This act is now law. It makes mining a public purpose, and is therefore of importance in interpreting certain clauses of "The Waste Land Act of 1872." It authorises the resumption of any land sold after 1873 with no consideration as to its auriferous character.
In 1873 he also introduced and carried through Parliament the Female Employment Bill. The bill has been preached throughout Scotland by the Rev. Dr Begg, and has been commented on favourably in England and the English Parliament. In England the hours allowed for female labour are 10; in New Zealand they are only eight.
In 1874 an amendment act was introduced, by Mr Rolleston, and the opportunity was taken by the originator of the Factory Act to still further improve it. In 1875 Mr Donald Reid again endeavoured to amend the Bill in the interests of the employers, and was successful in the Assembly.
Mr Bradshaw gave notice of a series of amendments in the interests of the working classes, which he was unsuccessful in carrying, but which were insisted on by the Legislative Council. The act is now known everywhere as the Bradshaw Factory Act. Under its provisions no child is allowed to work in factories under the age of 10; and no boy or girl from 10 to 14 can be employed for more than four hours a day.
Mr Bradshaw's public career has been distinguished for sterling integrity, industry, and dogged determination; what he determined to do he succeeded in doing or getting done. A more generous politician never existed; what he knew or gathered at great expense of time, or labour was freely anyone's who wished to make use of it. We do not know any member whose time has been so devoted to the interests of the goldfields, and his labours have not been fruitless,
It is true Bradshaw's Act re the employment of females and children in factories and workshops shines with lustre among the statutes of New Zealand. The restrictions embodied in the act have conferred a great boon on those so employed throughout the colony. Lessening the hours of indoor confinement adds vigour to body and limb, and were it not for Mr Bradshaw's exertions, hundreds of our youth, male and female, through long hours and overexertion, would ere now be crippled, and many would have languished and been sent to an early grave.
Parents and their offspring performing work that comes under the act have every right to be grateful for the benefits conferred on them through the unceasing exertions of Mr Bradshaw. Before we had the act females were sometimes kept at work till midnight in workrooms, factories, and at counters throughout New Zealand, and in some cases they worked from 6 a.m. -Otago Witness, 24/12/1886.
Northern Cemetery, Dunedin.
