Lindsay Buick

Lindsay Buick CMG
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Wairau
In office 5 December 1890 – 19 December 1896
Preceded by	Henry Dodson
Succeeded by	Charles H. Mills
Personal details
Born	(1865-05-13)13 May 1865 Oamaru, New Zealand
Died	22 February 1938(1938-02-22) (aged 72) Wellington, New Zealand
Political party	Liberal
Spouse(s)	Mary Fitzgerald

Thomas Lindsay Buick CMG (13 May 1865 – 22 February 1938) was a Liberal Member of Parliament for Wairau, New Zealand, a journalist and a historian. He published under the name T. Lindsay Buick.

Early life[]

Born in Oamaru on 13 May 1865, Buick was the son of Margaret (née Petrie) and John Walter Buick.^[1][2] His parents had emigrated from England to Port Chalmers in 1860. Buick received his education at schools in Oamaru and moved to Blenheim in 1884 to work as a carpenter. Although he had no relation to Ireland or Catholicism, he joined the Irish National League "purely as a lover of liberty and justice", and in 1889 he embarked on a speaker tour. He was also active in the temperance movement.^[1]

Buick married Mary Fitzgerald on 8 January 1891 at Blenheim; they were to have no children.^[1]

Member of Parliament[]

Buick represented the Wairau electorate in the New Zealand House of Representatives from 1890 to 1896, when he was defeated.^[3][4] The 1896 general election was contested by Buick and Charles H. Mills, who received 2014 and 2072 votes, respectively. Mills thus succeeded Buick.^[5] He was a temperance advocate and supporter of Irish Home Rule.^[6]

From 1893 until 1894 he was the Liberal Party's junior whip.^[7]

Years later, in July 1904 he unsuccessfully contested Pahiatua by-election as the official Liberal candidate.^[1]

Historical work[]

Buick wrote numerous works on the pre-European and early contact history New Zealand, and two books on music. His The Treaty of Waitangi: or, How New Zealand became a British Colony (1916) remained the only substantial work on the Treaty until the late 1980s.

Later, he was owner/publisher of the Dannevirke Advocate.^[8]

Honours and awards[]

In the 1933 King's Birthday Honours, Buick was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG), for public services.^[9] In 1935, he was awarded the King George V Silver Jubilee Medal.^[10]

Published work[]

• Old Marlborough: or, The Story of a Province (1900)
• Old Manawatu: or, The Wild Days of the West (1903)
• Old New Zealander: or, Te Rauparaha, the Napoleon of the South (1911)
• Letters from Abroad (1914)
• The Treaty of Waitangi: or, How New Zealand became a British Colony (1916)
• New Zealand's First War: or, The Rebellion of Hone Heke (1926)
• Romance of the Gramophone (1927)
• French at Akaroa: An Adventure in Colonization (1928)
• Jubilee of the Port of Wellington, 1880-1930 (1930)
• Mystery of the Moa: New Zealand's Avian Giant (1931)
• British Residency at Waitangi (1932)
• Waitangi: Ninety-four Years After (1934)
• Old British Residency at the Bay of Islands (1934)
• Centenary of a Flag: New Zealand's Old National Ensign (1934)
• Elijah: The Story of Mendelssohn’s Oratorio (1935)
• The Discovery of Dinornis: The Story of a Man, a Bone, and a Bird (1936)
• Moa-Hunters of New Zealand: Sportsmen of the Stone Age (1936)

Notes[]

References[]

• Hamer, David A. (1988). The New Zealand Liberals: The Years of Power, 1891–1912. Auckland: Auckland University Press. ISBN 1 86940 014 3. OCLC 18420103.
• Wilson, James Oakley (1985) [First ed. published 1913]. New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1984 (4th ed.). Wellington: V.R. Ward, Govt. Printer. OCLC 154283103.

External links[]

• Works by Lindsay Buick at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Lindsay Buick at Internet Archive
• "Prime Minister's tribute". The Evening Post. 23 February 1938 – via Papers Past.
• "Death". The Evening Post. 23 February 1938 – via Papers Past.
• "Tribute". The Evening Post. 23 February 1938 – via Papers Past.
• "Obituary (says born 1866)". Evening Star. 23 February 1938 – via Papers Past.
• "Obituary". The Press in Papers Past. 23 February 1938.