Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/129

 and was Postmaster-General and Commissioner of Customs, Stamp Duties, and Telegraphs in the short-lived administration from Sept. 10th to Oct. 11th, 1872. Mr. Curtis was for many years resident magistrate, warden, and coroner of the Nelson district and a governor of Nelson College. He was a Fellow of the University of New Zealand, and a member of the Senate from 1870 to 1888.  Cuthbert, Hon. Henry, M.L.C., the eldest son of John Cuthbert, of Roscommon, Ireland, was born at that place on July 29th, 1829. In 1854 he was admitted a solicitor in Ireland, and the same year left for Victoria, where he was at once admitted to practice. In 1855 he went to Ballarat, and, besides being successful in his profession, became largely interested in mining. He was the original promoter of the well-known Buninyong Gold Mining Company. In 1874 Mr. Cuthbert was returned to the Legislative Council, unopposed, for the South-Western Province, and is now one of the representatives of the Wellington Province in that body. Mr. Cuthbert held the office of Postmaster-General in the second Administration from July 1877 to July 1878, when he resigned in consequence of inability to support the Government scheme for Reform of the Council. In March 1880 he joined Mr. 's Ministry as Commissioner of Customs and Postmaster-General, and held office till the defeat of the Government in the following August. Mr. Cuthbert was Minister of Justice under Mr. Gillies from Feb. 1886 to Nov. 1890. He married in May 1863 the second daughter of Mr. Kirby, of Melbourne, and was one of the representatives of Victoria at the Federation Convention of 1891. 

Daintree, Richard, C.M.G., sometime Agent-General for Queensland, was born at Hemingford Abbotts, Huntingdonshire, in Dec. 1851, and was educated at Bedford Grammar School and Christ's College, Cambridge. Being in delicate health, he was recommended a voyage to Australia, and arrived in Victoria in 1852, where he was employed as assistant to Mr., the Government Geologist, from 1854 to 1856, when Mr. Daintree returned to England, and was for six months a student in Dr. Percy's laboratory in the Royal School of Mines. In August 1857 Mr. Daintree returned to Melbourne, and in 1858 was appointed Field Geologist on the Geological Survey of Victoria, on which he worked for seven years, paying special attention to the Cape Patterson coal formation and the exploration of the Bass river. Having resigned his post in Victoria and engaged in squatting pursuits in North Queensland, he was appointed Government Geologist for North Queensland in 1868, and in March 1872 Agent-General for the colony in London. He held this position till 1876, when he was compelled to resign through ill-health. He had been created C.M.G. in 1875, and died on June 25th, 1878.  Daldy, Captain William Crush, was born at Rainham, Essex, in 1816. He arrived in New Zealand in 1841, having brought out the schooner Shamrock, eighty-five tons. On the voyage to Launceston he touched at Tahiti. The trouble with the French was then going on, and Captain Daldy was arrested as a political prisoner, and tried on the beach by a black judge and jury. This caused considerable correspondence between the Governments of the day. Captain Daldy arrived in Auckland on July 1st, 1841, on which day the first Custom House was opened. He traded for some time with the schooner between Sydney and Auckland. In 1845 he returned to England in charge of the barque Bellina, the first vessel loaded at Auckland with merchandise for export to England. The cargo was somewhat mixed, including copper ore from Kawau, kauri gum, manganese from Waiheki, and the first export of wool, consisting of two bales. During the voyage home Dr. and Mr. William Brown, who were passengers, both wrote their books on New Zealand. Captain Daldy returned to Auckland in 1847, and two years later commenced business as a general merchant and shipping agent in the firm of Coombes 113