Mr. James Frank Andrews, Confidential Shorthand Writer to the Premier, is the youngest son of the late Henry John Andrews, who in the early days was Coroner for the City of Auckland, and doctor of the Provincial Hospital. The subject of this notice was born at Plymouth, Devonshire, on the 26th June, 1848, and his family came to New Zealand in 1849. He is therefore almost a native of this Colony. He was educated at the Church of England Grammar School, having received a scholarship from the late Bishop Selwyn, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield. On completing his education in 1865, he entered the Customs service, where he remained until 1870, having gone through the several branches of the department. When the San Francisco mail service was started, he left the Customs and took a trip to the Sandwich Islands, where he remained some months visiting the different islands of the Hawaiian Group. In October, 1871, he left for Starbuck Island in the schooner “Sea Breeze,” which was wrecked on the island after loading guano. The brig “Moa,” Captain Robertson, brought the shipwrecked crew on to Melbourne, whence Mr. Andrews left for Greymouth, on the West Coast of New Zealand. He was for seven years on the gold diggings in Okarito, and was one of the first batch of diggers which arrived at the Haast rush in 1873. He came to the Kumara in 1877, where he was employed for some time by the Hon. Mr. Seddon. He then left and worked at Donnelly's Creek, Ross, for a short time. Not being fortunate, he decided to give up the gold diggings, and left the West Coast for Dunedin, Otago, where he joined the telegraph service. This he left the in 1888, and came to Wellington, where he joined the Public Works Department as an extra clerk. Mr. Andrews now determined to devote himself to the study of shorthand. In 1892 he accompanied the Earl of Onslow, Governor of New Zealand, and the Hon. Mr. Seddon, Minister for Public Works, as page 52 the latter's Private Secretary, on a tour through the West Coast goldfields, from Westport right through South Westland, visiting the glaciers of the Southern Alps, thence through the Haast Pass into Otago. On arrival in Wellington, the Governor's Private Secretary having gone to England, Mr. Andrews took his place until Lord Onslow's departure for England, when His Lordship presented Mr. Andrews with a letter of thanks and a silver inkstand mounted in ivory. In May, 1892, the Hon. Mr. Ballance expressed a wish to have Mr. Andrews attached to his staff, and Mr. Seddon consenting, he was accordingly appointed shorthand writer to the Premier. When Mr. Ballance was taken so ill at New Plymouth, Mr. Andrews accompanied him to Wellington, and on the death of the late Premier, he again joined Mr. Seddon's staff on the latter's assumption of the Premiership. He was all through the Northern Maori district and the Uriwera County with Mr. Seddon and Mr. Carroll, and took a verbatim note of all the native meetings, which forms the subject of a Parliamentary paper. Mr. Andrews is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and is a Master Mason. His mother Ledge is “Pacific” No. 1229. E.C. He has not affiliated.