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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Otago & Southland Provincial Districts]
Mr. John Ewing
Mr. John Ewing
, who is Chairman of the Scandinavian Water Race Company, works alluvial gold deposits by hydraulic sluicing and elevating, more extensively than anyone else in the Colony. Mr. Ewing has works in seven different localities, and at St. Bathans, where he resides, his workings, from which the material is elevated vertically 170 feet, are the sight of the district. The other workings are at Vinegar Hill and Cambrian, both situated within a radius of five miles from St. Bathans—and at Matakanui, Bald Hill Flat and Roxburgh. Mr. Ewing has been closely identified with the progress of this class of goldmining, not only in Central Otago but throughout the Colony, and has taken the lead in most of the improvements, which have been effected. He employs from sixty to one hundred men, as the water supply
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admits Mr. Ewing has represented the St. Bathans riding in the Maniototo County Council ever since the inauguration of the county system, and has been several times chairman. He stood for the district—then MountIda, now Waihemo—in 1885, against the late Mr. Scobie Mackenzie, who defeated Mr. Ewing by 103 votes, and so entered Parlia-ment for the first time. Mr. Ewing stood in the Liberal interest, aside in polities he has always strenuously upheld, whether the party has been in or out of power. Mr. Ewing came to the Colony in 1863, when a youth of nineteen, and straightway embarked in goldmining. Within a fow years he was the largest employer of labour in his own line on the Otago goldfields, and has remained so ever since. He was born on the 3rd of November, 1844, at Alexandra, Dumbartonshire. Scotland, and educated in the Academy of his native town. Mr. Ewing is married, but has no children.