Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/83

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
Bud]
DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN BIOGRAPHY.
[Bul

No. 1), which was raised by himself. Mr. Buckley married Alice, the only daughter of the late Hon. Sir William Fitzherbert, K.C.M.G. (q.v.). On May 25th, 1892, he was gazetted K.C.M.G.

Budge, Alexander Campbell, J.P., Clerk of the Executive Council, New South Wales, entered the Civil Service of that colony in Nov. 1858, and was appointed to his present office in Oct. 1863.

Bull, John Wrattall, son of the late Rev. John Bull, M.A., incumbent of St. John's, Walthamstow, England, was born at St. Paul's Cray, Kent, on June 23rd, 1804. He emigrated to South Australia in 1838, and engaged successfully in pastoral pursuits, but was ruined in the crisis caused by the dishonour of Governor Gawler's drafts. He went to the Victorian gold diggings in 1852, but returned to Adelaide the next year, when he became manager of Mr. Osmond Gilles' Glen Osmond property, where he established a vineyard, one of the first in the colony. In 1842 he invented a locomotive steam-threshing machine, and in 1882 was voted £250 by the South Australian Parliament for his improvements in agricultural machinery. He was the author of "Bull's Experiences of Colonial Life." He died on Sept. 21st, 1885.

Buller, Rev. James, was born in Cornwall in Dec. 1812, and went out to New Zealand as a missionary in connection with the Wesleyan Church in 1835. He was for three years at Hokianga, and was subsequently engaged on missionary work at Kaipara in Auckland, Tamanga, and in various other parts of both islands, his labours extending over forty years. In 1860 he was removed to Christchurch, but returned to Auckland in 1866, and in 1870 became superintendent minister at the Thames. He was successively President of the Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Conference and of the New Zealand Wesleyan Methodist Conference, and was the author of numerous religious brochures, and of two books, embodying his varied experiences—viz., "Forty Years in New Zealand" (London, 1878), and "New Zealand Past and Present" (London, 1880). He died at Christchurch on Nov. 6th, 1884.

Buller, Sir Walter Lawry, K.C.M.G., D.Sc., F.R.S., the descendant of an ancient Cornish family and the eldest surviving son of the late Rev. James Buller, was born on Oct. 9th, 1838, at Newark, Bay of Islands, N.Z., and was educated at Wesley College, Auckland. Having early acquired a knowledge of the Maori language, he was appointed Government interpreter at Wellington in 1855, and started and edited a weekly Maori paper called Te Karere o Poneke. In 1859 he was made Native Commissioner for the Southern Provinces, and carried through the partition and individualisation of the Kaiapoi Native Reserve. In 1861 he acted as honorary secretary to the Kohimarama conference of native chiefs, convened by Governor Gore Browne; and in the same year edited the Maori Messenger, a fortnightly paper in English and Maori, being afterwards also promoter and editor of the Maori Intelligencer (both of them Government publications). In April 1862 he was appointed Resident Magistrate of the Manawatu; and in April 1865 Judge of the Native Land Court. In the same year he was present at the taking of Wereroa Pa (Volunteer Staff), for which he received the New Zealand War Medal. On that occasion, declining the protection of a military escort, he carried the Governor's despatches at night through forty miles of the enemy's country, attended only by a Maori orderly, for which gallant service he was mentioned in despatches. In 1866 he became Resident Magistrate and Sheriff of Wanganui, which office he held till 1871, when he went to England as Secretary to the Agent-General. For a continuous period of fifteen years he had held various official appointments, chiefly in connection with native affairs, and had on eight different occasions received the special thanks of the Colonial Government. He entered as a student at the Inner Temple on Nov. 20th, 1871, and was called to the bar on June 6th, 1874. In the same year he returned to New Zealand, and practised as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court with remarkable success till 1886, when he visited England as Commissioner in connection with the Colonial and Indian Exhibition. For his services on this occasion he was created K.C.M.G., having been made a C.M.G. in 1875 in recognition of his researches in New Zealand ornithology. In 1876 he was elected F.R.S. on the same account. Sir Walter remained in England till 1890, and took

67