SINCLAIR/BRUCE grave
with Mikes hand...it seemed a good idea at the time while he was trying to work out the inscription :-)
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Andrew SINCLAIR MDRN
Colonial Secretary of New Zealand
excerpt from Daily Southern Cross - 19 April 1861"
"The first collector of NZ specimens of natural history in botany, conchology and entomology. He sent home such a variety of plants, shells and insects as to induce Dr Grey of the British Museum to commence the first scientifically arranged catalogue which may be found appended to Dieffenbach's work on New Zealand."
Excellent obituary:
paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=s...
also
Mary Alexander SINCLAIR
wife of Rev. David BRUCE
who died at Broughly Fell
5 Dec 1870 aged 50
"Mary hath chosen that good path
this shall not be taken from her"
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Andrew Sinclair was born at Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, on 13 April 1794, the son of John Sinclair, a weaver, and his wife, Agnes Renfrew. He never married. From 1814 to 1818 Sinclair studied medicine and surgery at the University of Glasgow, at L'Hôpital de la Charité in Paris, and at the University of Edinburgh where he qualified as a licentiate in 1818. In 1822 he joined the Royal Navy as an assistant surgeon, and for 10 years, from 1823, served on the Owen Glendower at the Cape of Good Hope and in the Mediterranean. During this period he collected botanical and zoological specimens which he sent to the British Museum.
After taking further lectures in medicine, Sinclair joined the Sulphur in 1835 as surgeon, and accompanied Captain William Beechey on his survey expedition to the Pacific coasts of North and South America. Until he was invalided home in 1839, he continued to pursue his interest in botany, sending specimens from California, Mexico, Central America and Brazil to the British Museum and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. These collections established his reputation as a foremost collector. After recovering his health he began a brief period as a surgeon on convict ships to Australia. On one voyage in 1841 he visited the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, arriving on the Favorite on 24 October. There he joined the missionary William Colenso, and Joseph Dalton Hooker, assistant surgeon on James Clark Ross's Antarctic expedition which was in New Zealand at the time, on several local botanical expeditions. He subsequently presented to the British Museum a collection of shells and animals which included the shellfish pipi, crabs, spiders, dragonflies, cicadas, butterflies, corals and sponges. He returned to Scotland the following year.
In September 1843 Sinclair arrived in Tasmania as surgeon superintendent on the convict ship Asiatic. After signing off he intended to return to England. However, in Sydney he met Robert FitzRoy, the governor elect of New Zealand. The two struck an immediate rapport, and FitzRoy offered Sinclair a free passage to Auckland. They arrived there on 23 December 1843. On 6 January 1844, after much persuasion from FitzRoy, Sinclair reluctantly accepted the appointment of colonial secretary, and was also made a member of the Legislative Council on 8 January.
From 1844 until the establishment of responsible government in April 1856 Sinclair served as colonial secretary under Governors Robert FitzRoy and George Grey, Acting Governor Robert Wynyard, and Governor Thomas Gore Browne. He had wide discretionary powers, but showed no particular ability in dealing with the continuing struggle between the governors and settlers which dominated politics in early Auckland. He established a reputation for being 'honest, upright, scrupulous and laborious', however, and is also credited with choosing and training subordinates who became the nucleus of an efficient public service.
In Auckland Sinclair also devoted himself to business transactions and a variety of cultural pursuits. He was widely regarded as a shrewd businessman, to whom many, including FitzRoy and Grey, entrusted their investments. He was fond of literature, music and art, and through his travels and thirst for knowledge commanded a rich repertoire of stories which he loved to relate. A staunch Presbyterian, he was a founder of St Andrew's Church, Auckland, in 1847, and was also a founder of the Auckland Museum in 1852.
Although his political career was unremarkable, Sinclair is best remembered for his contribution to natural history. During his term of office as colonial secretary he spent much of his spare time collecting botanical specimens for Kew. After his retirement he visited Scotland and Europe, where he discussed a wide range of scientific matters with Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley and Richard Owen. On 20 January 1857 he was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society of London. He returned to New Zealand in late 1858 to collect material for J. D. Hooker's Handbook of the New Zealand flora (1864--67). On 20 February 1861 Sinclair joined Julius Haast on what was to be his last, and fateful, expedition - Haast's geological survey of the headwaters of the Rangitata River, Canterbury. On 26 March 1861 Sinclair was drowned while crossing the Rangitata. He was buried at Mesopotamia station nearby.
J. D. Hooker had dedicated his Flora Novae-Zelandiae (1853) to Andrew Sinclair and to two other prominent collectors, William Colenso and David Lyall. Sixteen New Zealand plants were named in Sinclair's honour, including an orchid, sedges, herbs, shrubs and trees, notably the puka ( Meryta sinclairii ). Sinclair's efforts during the Beechey expedition were commemorated by W. J. Hooker and G. A. W. Arnott in the plant genus Sinclairia (Asteraceae), while his association with Haast is remembered in the mountain daisy Haastia sinclairii. Haast in turn honoured his friend and field companion by naming Mt Sinclair, near Mesopotamia, and the Sinclair River. Had he not died tragically, Sinclair might well have extended his collecting to rank equal with that of Colenso. On his death J. D. Hooker wrote: 'His loss has been a very great one, whether as a botanist or as an enthusiastic and liberal patron of science.' [1]
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Born at Cramond, near Edinburgh, Scotland, on 20 June 1824, David Bruce was the son of a carpenter, also named David Bruce, and his wife, Margaret Robertson. The family moved to Perthshire, where David attended parish schools and Mr Davidson's Classical Academy in Perth. In 1847 he graduated MA from the University of Edinburgh, and then studied theology at New College, Edinburgh. Licensed by the Free Church of Scotland Presbytery of Edinburgh in 1851, he became an assistant minister in Aberdeen in 1852. He was offered posts in Boston and Montreal, but chose to accept an appointment to Auckland, New Zealand, and was ordained on 4 January 1853 by the Presbytery of Aberdeen.
David Bruce arrived in Auckland on 10 June 1853 on the Simlah and set about healing divisions in his congregation at the church in Waterloo Quadrant, and reducing its substantial debt, as well as founding new charges and establishing Presbyterian government. He was a founder of the Presbytery of Auckland in 1856, and played a key role in the formation of the northern Presbyterian Church of New Zealand in 1862. Bruce became convener of its Home Mission Committee, a position he was to hold for 20 years.
On 18 October 1859 in Auckland David Bruce had married Mary Alexander Sinclair. They were to have four daughters and three sons. He was released from his parish, now called St Andrew's, in 1863, to travel throughout New Zealand and report on the establishment of new congregations. He raised money through his correspondence with the churches in Scotland and Ireland and recruited many able ministers, as well as educating local candidates and working for higher education. (He later served on the senate of the University of New Zealand and the Auckland University College council.) In 1866 Bruce was moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, also serving on key committees and helping to set up procedures to deal with church property and finance.
Bruce had great physical stamina and covered astonishing distances in his church extension work, but by 1870 he was near exhaustion and took leave in Britain. Mary Bruce died there in 1870. Bruce wrote and spoke extensively in Scotland and recruited 12 more ministers for New Zealand, returning to Auckland in 1872. He was clerk of assembly until 1882 and was the assembly's full-time general agent from 1877 to 1881. The assembly's financial difficulties led to his resignation and a struggle to claim the arrears owed him. Although in title he remained senior minister of St Andrew's until 1892, he had effectively retired from the parish in 1877. He had no active duties in the parish and after 1881 devoted most of his energies to journalism in Auckland and Wellington, writing leaders for the New Zealand Herald and editing the New Zealand Times. He was also involved with the New Zealand Observer. He had long been a prolific writer, who had helped to found the New Zealand Presbyterian Magazine (forerunner of the Outlook ) in 1872 and took a keen interest in political and ethical issues. Bruce was an untiring worker for the union of the two Presbyterian churches in New Zealand. He took a liberal position on temperance and family law reform and was an enthusiastic supporter of international Presbyterian co-operation.
In 1889 Bruce went to New South Wales. He received a DD from the University of St Andrews, Scotland, in 1891, and was inducted into the parish of North St Leonards, Sydney in 1893. He continued to be active in church administration, education and extension. In 1897 he was moderator of the New South Wales General Assembly and from 1903 to 1905 moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, and remains the only person to have held such office on both sides of the Tasman. He died at Killara, New South Wales, on 15 December 1911. [2]
Ref [1]:
Molloy, Brian P. J. 'Sinclair, Andrew 1794 - 1861'. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, updated 22 June 2007
URL: www.dnzb.govt.nz/
Also a photograph on DNZB site
Ref [2]:
Breward, Ian. 'Bruce, David 1824 - 1911'. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, updated 22 June 2007
Also a photograph on DNZB site
URL: www.dnzb.govt.nz/
SINCLAIR/BRUCE grave
with Mikes hand...it seemed a good idea at the time while he was trying to work out the inscription :-)
**************************************************************************
Andrew SINCLAIR MDRN
Colonial Secretary of New Zealand
excerpt from Daily Southern Cross - 19 April 1861"
"The first collector of NZ specimens of natural history in botany, conchology and entomology. He sent home such a variety of plants, shells and insects as to induce Dr Grey of the British Museum to commence the first scientifically arranged catalogue which may be found appended to Dieffenbach's work on New Zealand."
Excellent obituary:
paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=s...
also
Mary Alexander SINCLAIR
wife of Rev. David BRUCE
who died at Broughly Fell
5 Dec 1870 aged 50
"Mary hath chosen that good path
this shall not be taken from her"
**************************************************************************
Andrew Sinclair was born at Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, on 13 April 1794, the son of John Sinclair, a weaver, and his wife, Agnes Renfrew. He never married. From 1814 to 1818 Sinclair studied medicine and surgery at the University of Glasgow, at L'Hôpital de la Charité in Paris, and at the University of Edinburgh where he qualified as a licentiate in 1818. In 1822 he joined the Royal Navy as an assistant surgeon, and for 10 years, from 1823, served on the Owen Glendower at the Cape of Good Hope and in the Mediterranean. During this period he collected botanical and zoological specimens which he sent to the British Museum.
After taking further lectures in medicine, Sinclair joined the Sulphur in 1835 as surgeon, and accompanied Captain William Beechey on his survey expedition to the Pacific coasts of North and South America. Until he was invalided home in 1839, he continued to pursue his interest in botany, sending specimens from California, Mexico, Central America and Brazil to the British Museum and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. These collections established his reputation as a foremost collector. After recovering his health he began a brief period as a surgeon on convict ships to Australia. On one voyage in 1841 he visited the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, arriving on the Favorite on 24 October. There he joined the missionary William Colenso, and Joseph Dalton Hooker, assistant surgeon on James Clark Ross's Antarctic expedition which was in New Zealand at the time, on several local botanical expeditions. He subsequently presented to the British Museum a collection of shells and animals which included the shellfish pipi, crabs, spiders, dragonflies, cicadas, butterflies, corals and sponges. He returned to Scotland the following year.
In September 1843 Sinclair arrived in Tasmania as surgeon superintendent on the convict ship Asiatic. After signing off he intended to return to England. However, in Sydney he met Robert FitzRoy, the governor elect of New Zealand. The two struck an immediate rapport, and FitzRoy offered Sinclair a free passage to Auckland. They arrived there on 23 December 1843. On 6 January 1844, after much persuasion from FitzRoy, Sinclair reluctantly accepted the appointment of colonial secretary, and was also made a member of the Legislative Council on 8 January.
From 1844 until the establishment of responsible government in April 1856 Sinclair served as colonial secretary under Governors Robert FitzRoy and George Grey, Acting Governor Robert Wynyard, and Governor Thomas Gore Browne. He had wide discretionary powers, but showed no particular ability in dealing with the continuing struggle between the governors and settlers which dominated politics in early Auckland. He established a reputation for being 'honest, upright, scrupulous and laborious', however, and is also credited with choosing and training subordinates who became the nucleus of an efficient public service.
In Auckland Sinclair also devoted himself to business transactions and a variety of cultural pursuits. He was widely regarded as a shrewd businessman, to whom many, including FitzRoy and Grey, entrusted their investments. He was fond of literature, music and art, and through his travels and thirst for knowledge commanded a rich repertoire of stories which he loved to relate. A staunch Presbyterian, he was a founder of St Andrew's Church, Auckland, in 1847, and was also a founder of the Auckland Museum in 1852.
Although his political career was unremarkable, Sinclair is best remembered for his contribution to natural history. During his term of office as colonial secretary he spent much of his spare time collecting botanical specimens for Kew. After his retirement he visited Scotland and Europe, where he discussed a wide range of scientific matters with Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley and Richard Owen. On 20 January 1857 he was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society of London. He returned to New Zealand in late 1858 to collect material for J. D. Hooker's Handbook of the New Zealand flora (1864--67). On 20 February 1861 Sinclair joined Julius Haast on what was to be his last, and fateful, expedition - Haast's geological survey of the headwaters of the Rangitata River, Canterbury. On 26 March 1861 Sinclair was drowned while crossing the Rangitata. He was buried at Mesopotamia station nearby.
J. D. Hooker had dedicated his Flora Novae-Zelandiae (1853) to Andrew Sinclair and to two other prominent collectors, William Colenso and David Lyall. Sixteen New Zealand plants were named in Sinclair's honour, including an orchid, sedges, herbs, shrubs and trees, notably the puka ( Meryta sinclairii ). Sinclair's efforts during the Beechey expedition were commemorated by W. J. Hooker and G. A. W. Arnott in the plant genus Sinclairia (Asteraceae), while his association with Haast is remembered in the mountain daisy Haastia sinclairii. Haast in turn honoured his friend and field companion by naming Mt Sinclair, near Mesopotamia, and the Sinclair River. Had he not died tragically, Sinclair might well have extended his collecting to rank equal with that of Colenso. On his death J. D. Hooker wrote: 'His loss has been a very great one, whether as a botanist or as an enthusiastic and liberal patron of science.' [1]
************************************************************************
Born at Cramond, near Edinburgh, Scotland, on 20 June 1824, David Bruce was the son of a carpenter, also named David Bruce, and his wife, Margaret Robertson. The family moved to Perthshire, where David attended parish schools and Mr Davidson's Classical Academy in Perth. In 1847 he graduated MA from the University of Edinburgh, and then studied theology at New College, Edinburgh. Licensed by the Free Church of Scotland Presbytery of Edinburgh in 1851, he became an assistant minister in Aberdeen in 1852. He was offered posts in Boston and Montreal, but chose to accept an appointment to Auckland, New Zealand, and was ordained on 4 January 1853 by the Presbytery of Aberdeen.
David Bruce arrived in Auckland on 10 June 1853 on the Simlah and set about healing divisions in his congregation at the church in Waterloo Quadrant, and reducing its substantial debt, as well as founding new charges and establishing Presbyterian government. He was a founder of the Presbytery of Auckland in 1856, and played a key role in the formation of the northern Presbyterian Church of New Zealand in 1862. Bruce became convener of its Home Mission Committee, a position he was to hold for 20 years.
On 18 October 1859 in Auckland David Bruce had married Mary Alexander Sinclair. They were to have four daughters and three sons. He was released from his parish, now called St Andrew's, in 1863, to travel throughout New Zealand and report on the establishment of new congregations. He raised money through his correspondence with the churches in Scotland and Ireland and recruited many able ministers, as well as educating local candidates and working for higher education. (He later served on the senate of the University of New Zealand and the Auckland University College council.) In 1866 Bruce was moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, also serving on key committees and helping to set up procedures to deal with church property and finance.
Bruce had great physical stamina and covered astonishing distances in his church extension work, but by 1870 he was near exhaustion and took leave in Britain. Mary Bruce died there in 1870. Bruce wrote and spoke extensively in Scotland and recruited 12 more ministers for New Zealand, returning to Auckland in 1872. He was clerk of assembly until 1882 and was the assembly's full-time general agent from 1877 to 1881. The assembly's financial difficulties led to his resignation and a struggle to claim the arrears owed him. Although in title he remained senior minister of St Andrew's until 1892, he had effectively retired from the parish in 1877. He had no active duties in the parish and after 1881 devoted most of his energies to journalism in Auckland and Wellington, writing leaders for the New Zealand Herald and editing the New Zealand Times. He was also involved with the New Zealand Observer. He had long been a prolific writer, who had helped to found the New Zealand Presbyterian Magazine (forerunner of the Outlook ) in 1872 and took a keen interest in political and ethical issues. Bruce was an untiring worker for the union of the two Presbyterian churches in New Zealand. He took a liberal position on temperance and family law reform and was an enthusiastic supporter of international Presbyterian co-operation.
In 1889 Bruce went to New South Wales. He received a DD from the University of St Andrews, Scotland, in 1891, and was inducted into the parish of North St Leonards, Sydney in 1893. He continued to be active in church administration, education and extension. In 1897 he was moderator of the New South Wales General Assembly and from 1903 to 1905 moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, and remains the only person to have held such office on both sides of the Tasman. He died at Killara, New South Wales, on 15 December 1911. [2]
Ref [1]:
Molloy, Brian P. J. 'Sinclair, Andrew 1794 - 1861'. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, updated 22 June 2007
URL: www.dnzb.govt.nz/
Also a photograph on DNZB site
Ref [2]:
Breward, Ian. 'Bruce, David 1824 - 1911'. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, updated 22 June 2007
Also a photograph on DNZB site
URL: www.dnzb.govt.nz/