A PILGRIM FATHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2326, 29 September 1898, Page 11

A PILGRIM FATHER.

At lagt week's meeting of the Dunedin City Council, Dr Hocken wrote : "In the course of a very interesting correspondence with Mr Edmund Bellairs, of Hatfleld, Herts, that gentleman expresses his willingness to present to the city a portrait o£ his father, the late Captain B. H. W. Bellairs, provided the council is willing to accept the same, and -would hang it by the side of Sir William Chambers and Mr George Eennie in the Council Chambers. Like those gentlemen, Captain Bellairs was much interested in the colonisation of New Zealand, and was especially connected with the Otago and Canterbury portions of it. Arriving at Dunedin with his newly-wedded wife in the early fifties he took a veiy active interest in the political — especially the land — questions of the time. These he discussed with much ability and fervour. In the first Legislative Council, which met in 1854, he sat for Otago. Should the council desire to accept this public-spirited offer I shall be happy' to convey an intimation of the same to Mr Bellaira." — The Mayor supposed that none of the councillors cotikl look back to the time when Captain Bellairs resided here. He had gone before the speaker arrived in the colony, biit he was very well known in Dunedin in quite the earliest days. He was the original proprietor of Fernhill, before it came into Mr Jones's possession, and he also possessed, the speaker thought, property at Pelichet Bay that afterwards became Mr Harris's property. He took a somewhat conspicuous part in the earliest days. After he went to Europe he was a man of some little note, and he (the mayor) thought he acted for some time as correspondent of the London, 1 Times in Paris. — Cr Denniston moved that the i picture be accepted with thanks. — The motion was carried unanimously,,