James Busby (7 February 1801 – 15 July 1871) was British Resident to New Zealand, involved in the drafting of the Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand and the Treaty of Waitangi, and is widely regarded as the "father" of the Australian wine industry, as he took the first collection of vine stock from Spain and France to Australia. As British Resident, he acted as New Zealand's first jurist, and the 'originator of law in Aotearoa', to wh...
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James Busby (7 February 1801 – 15 July 1871) was British Resident to New Zealand, involved in the drafting of the Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand and the Treaty of Waitangi, and is widely regarded as the "father" of the Australian wine industry, as he took the first collection of vine stock from Spain and France to Australia. As British Resident, he acted as New Zealand's first jurist, and the 'originator of law in Aotearoa', to whom New Zealand 'owes almost all of its underlying jurisprudence'.
He was born in Scotland, the son son of English engineer John Busby, and the family emigrated from Britain to New South Wales in 1824.
Busby soon returned to England where he worked for the government before visiting Spain and France to study viticulture. In March 1832 he was appointed to the position of British Resident of New Zealand and went to the Bay of Islands, taking with him some of the vine stock he had collected in Europe. He married Agnes Dow at Segenhoe, in the...
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