SIR W. CAIRNS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume I, Issue 29, 3 December 1878, Page 3

SIR W. CAIRNS.

« The Dunedin " Star" has the following notice of Sir W.Cairns, who has, according to report, baen appointed Governor of -New Zealand ; — Sir William Wellington Cairns, K.C.M.G., who is to succeed the Marquis of Norman by, was born in the year 1828, and is the second surviving son of the late Captain William Cairns, J.P., of Parkmount and Kustpark, County Antrim, Ireland and of Cultra, County of Down. The eldest surviving son is Earl Cairns, the present Lord Chancellor | of England. Sir William left Ireland in 1848 on a visit to the East, where he entered into a course of study to ! qualify himself to enter the Govern- { xnent service. He attained this end four years later, when, in 1852, he was appointed a writer in the civil service of Ceylon. Steadily persevering and working his way upward, he was finally appointed PostmasterGeneral, which office he held in 1866, when he took leave of absence and returned to Great Britain. Early in "the following year tbe LieutenantGovernorship of Malacca, a division of the then newly-constituted colony . of the Crown — theSa-aits Settlement — was conferred upon him. Two year* later, ho was appointed as Lieutenant-Governor of St. Christopher, Nevis, and Antigua in the West Indies, which honorable poa» it ion he admirably filled until the year 1870, when he was selected by the Colonial Office to undertake the government of British Honduras, the only British dependency in Central America-- a fact that greatly added tothe|importance and responsibility of tbe office. Lord Granville had, before making the appointment, selected Sir William Cairns to »iit upon the Board of Inquiry into the condition of tho Indian and Chinese immigrants in British Guiana; but the prelim* mary arrangements having progressed somewhat slowly in England, it was decided that he should not wait for the constitution of the Board, but should at once proceed to Bon* duras to take up his position as Lieutenant Governor. In- that capacity he fully realised all that his previous career had predicted, and so high was the opinion in which he was held by the Home authorities that in 1874 the Karl of Kimberley obtained for him the distinctive mark of the royal favour in his advancement to the rank of a Companion of the Older of St. Michael and St. George, and offered him the government of Trinidad, which he accepted, and filled the responsible position with satisfaction to the people, amongst whom he secured numerous friends. Tho climate, however, was too much for his constitution, and as his health was rapidly failing, at the advice of medical advisers he resigned his appointment. Shortly after his return to Europe, whither he bad proceeded on leave of absence, he was offered Governorship of Queensland, which he accepted and retained until he was appointed Governor of South Australia, early in 1877. At tho beginniug of the present year he had to relinquish that governorship on account of ill health, and to return to England, where he was creaied a X.C M.a