John Larkins Cheese ­Richardson The Gentlest, Bravest and Most Just of Men By Olive Trotter.

John Larkins Cheese ­Richardson
The Gentlest, Bravest and Most Just of Men
By Olive Trotter.

Publisher:
Otago University Press, 2010. First Edition.

Near new softback, no inscriptions.

208 pages, illustrated.

The definitive biography of a much-beloved and respected colonial activist. Born in Bengal in 1810 but educated in England, Richardson spent his early career in India in the military, achieving the rank of Major. He served in the Afghanistan campaign in 1842 and was ADC to Sir Harry Smith throughout the Sikh Wars; was wounded and twice decorated. On his retirement from the army in the1850s he spent four months in New Zealand and subsequently decided to migrate permanently, settling in Otago in 1856. 'The old Major', as he was known, soon became politically active, first being elected to the Otago Provincial Council, serving as its Superintendent during the goldrush years of the 1860s and eventually becoming an MP and, in 1868, Speaker of the Legislative Council. He was a champion of female education and it was largely his advocacy that ensured the University of Otago should open its doors to women - becoming the first university in the Southern Hemisphere to admit women to all its classes.
A witty, cultivated man much in demand as a public speaker, Richardson was progressive on Maori land issues and in the 1870s was commissioner enquiring into British and Maori accounts of the wars. Maori, he protested, 'to this day has been treated as a thing of naught. 'Legislation and other measures that he promoted, including attempts to control the rabbit nuisance already threatening pastoral farming, revealed a far-seeing mind. Richardson was intelligent, warm, and conscientious and his death in 1878 evoked great public mourning.

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