Vincent Pyke

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vincent Pyke (4 February 1827 – 5 June 1894) was a 19th century politician in Otago, New Zealand and Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia.

He was born in Somerset, England and went to Australia in 1851, first South Australia and then the gold diggings in Victoria where he spent two years as a miner around Bendigo and opened a store at Forest Creek. He was elected to represent Castlemaine in the Victorian Legislative Assembly from November 1855 to March 1856 and Castlemaine Boroughs from November 1856 to February 1857 and October 1859 and June 1862.^[1]

In 1862 he visited the Otago goldfields, and became Secretary or Commissioner of the goldfields for the Otago Provincial Council. He then moved to Dunstan and Clyde. He was the first Chairman of Vincent County, which was named after him following an ironic suggestion by an opponent.

He represented the electorates of Wakatipu 1873-75, then Dunstan 1875-79 until he was defeated. He then represented Tuapeka from 1893 to 1894 when he died. He was noted for his loyalty to Clyde and his Central Otago constituents.

He was also a journalist, and wrote two novels about life on the goldfields, Wild Will Enderby (1873) and The Adventures of George Washington Pratt (1874).

He married Frances Renwick in 1846 at Bristol, England; they had four sons and one daughter. He died at Lawrence, Otago.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• New Zealand Parliamentary Record 1840-1984 by J. O. Wilson (1985, 4th edition, Government Printer, Wellington)

[edit] External links

• entry in 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand
• etexts of five works by Pyke