SIR JOHN DENNISTON

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11752, 6 February 1918, Page 5

SIR JOHN DENNISTON

HIS RETIREMENT. Sir John Denniston ,-vhose resignation lias been accepted as a judge of the Supreme Court, was born at Bishop toil, on the C'yde, on June 20bh ,1845, and was educated at the Greenock Academy, and Intel' at Glasgow University, where he matriculated, intending 1 o enter the legal profession. His lather, the late Mr Thomas Dennis3oii, decided, however, to come rut to Now Zealand with three of 'lis sons, including the subject of 'his notice, then seventeen years old. Arriving in Otago in 1862, Mr Denniston, senior, took up a run in Southland, and the future judge, dui. : ng the, next few years, occupied positions successively in a mercantile office, the Public Service, and the Bank of New South Wales. Eventually ho realisod his early ambition, and bocame a law student with the late Hon. W. Downie Stewart, M.L.0., and was admitted to the Bar in 1874. In the following year, after having practised for a littb time in Waugaanui, he rejoined Mr Downie Stewart as a partner, mother member of the firm being the late Mr Allan Holmes. During the ntxt fourteen years Sir John Denniston became a prominent and distinguished member of the Dunedin Bar. ab that time the strongest in Npw Zealand, and one which has probably never been surpassed m the Dominion. On the death of Mr Jus tice Johnson in Christchurch, in 1889, Sir John Denniston was elevated to the Supreme" Court Bench, of which, at his retirement, ho was the senior judge. On February 12th of last year it was announced <bat his Majesty had conferred r,|,on him the well-deserved honour of knighthood. Sir John Denniston's devotion to his native land, which all good Scots retain through life, has been indicated by the interest he has always taken in the Canterbury Caledonian Society.