SIR JOHN FINDLAY

Waipa Post, Volume 39, Issue 3087, 10 December 1929, Page 5

SIR JOHN FINDLAY

DEATH IN ENGLAND. WELLINGTON, Monday. Private advice was received in Wellington to-day of the death in England of Sir John Findlay, K.C., LL.D., K.C.M.G., who was born in Dunedin in 1862. He was educated in Hokitika, and at Otago University, where he gained his LL.B. degree in 1886. He was celled to the Bar in the following year. On the death of the late Hon. A. Pitt, Attorney-General, in November, 1906, Dr Findlay succeeded to .that office, in Sir Joseph Ward’s Cabinet, being called to the Legislative Council for the purpose.. Sir John was not a member of the House of Representatives until 1917, although he had sought election in Wellington in 1902, and in Parnell in 1911. He resigned his seat in the Legislative Council for the purpose of contesting Parnell against Mr J. S. Dickson and Mr J. Mack, but in the second ballot Mr Dickson defeated him. In March, 1917, upon/the death of the Hon. R. McNab, Sir John was elected M.P. for Hawkes’ Bay, and he sat in the House until 1919.

Sir John Findlay was for many years recognised as one of the most able counsel in the Dominion, and he was especially interested in constitutional law. He was made a K.C. in 1907. A man of wide interests, he lectured often and wrote much on literary, political and economic questions. An enthusiastic mountaineer, in his vacations he was most often found at the Hermitage, Mount Cook. Sir John is survived by Lady Findlay and two sons. One of his sons, Captain J. L. Findlay, of the New Zealand Air Force, is at present in England.