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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Otago & Southland Provincial Districts]

Mr. James Robert Bertrand

Mr. James Robert Bertrand , who was for some time a member of the Campbelltown Borough Council, was born at Dominica, West Indies, in 1840. He is the youngest son of Mr. Edmund Rufus Bertrand, lieutenant in the East Indian navy, and his mother was Miss Frances Lee before her marriage, daughter of Squire Lee, of Coldley, near Alton, Hampshire, England. Both his parents died at an early age, and the subject of this sketch was adopted by his mother's relatives. He was educated at Upper Clapton, near Hackney, and at the Greenwich Naval School. At the age of fifteen years, he entered the Royal Navy as assistant clerk on H.M.S. “Bulldog,” in which he remained for eighteen months; was then transferred to the “Excellent,” gunneryship at Portsmonth, and afterwards served as clerk on various ships on the South American station. Mr. Bertrand came to New Zealand in the ship “Metropolis” in 1863, and joined the Customs Department at Timaru as clerk; he was successively first and second landing waiter at Greymouth, first landing waiter at Westport, and in 1874 officer-in-charge at Bluff. Mr. Bertrand retired on a pension in November, 1894, chiefly on account of ill-health, after a long and arduous service of thirty-one years. He was elected to the borough council in 1897. was initiated into Freemasonry in Lodge St. John, No. 610, S.C., Invercargill, in 1885, and afterwards affiliated with Lodge Fortitude, No. 62, N.Z.C., Bluff. In 1871 he married a daughter of Mr. Labatt, of Westport.