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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Otago & Southland Provincial Districts]
Mr. John Walker Mitchell
Mr. John Walker Mitchell , who has long been a member of the Bluff Harbour Board, and was for nine years its chairman, was born at Thornhill, Perthshire, Scotland, in 1832, and came to New Zealand in 1862. He has been identified with local politics for the last forty years, during which he has rendered important services to his fellow-citizens. In 1870 he was elected Mayor, and during his term of office took steps which ended in an Act being passed to constitute the Bluff Harbour Board. Perhaps, however, the greatest service he has rendered to Southland was his energetic action as chairman of the Railway and Immigration Committee in the seventies, as the success of that redoubtable association is fully attested by the network of railways of which Invercargill is the centre. Mr. Mitchell was re-elected Mayor of Invercargill in 1890.