BUCHANAN, ANDREW (1806-77) was born in Jamaica, his father being a sugar planter and his mother the daughter of a planter in St Kitts. After the liberation of the slaves they settled in Dorsetshire and he was educated at Sherborne and at Paris University, where he graduated in medicine and surgery. In 1830 he volunteered for service in the Polish struggle for independence. On the suppression of the insurrection he went to St Andrews University, where he graduated M.D. In 1833 he settled in the south of England as a public vaccinator. Two years later he married a daughter of Dr Harkness (London). He was in London for about 25 years, being a governor of St George's hospital and having an estate at Chingford, Essex.

Having achieved a competence, Buchanan retired from practice and in 1857 brought his family to Auckland. In 1858 he was called to give evidence before a parliamentary committee on lunatic asylums, and in 1859 a site was chosen at Nelson for an asylum. The Taranaki war intervening, Buchanan moved to Dunedin, where he took up the Patearoa run of 75,000 acres, extending from the Lammerlaws to Sowburn point. In 1862 he brought his family and horses to Otago in the schooner Clutha. He erected a house in North East Valley, but frequently visited his run at Maniatoto. In 1862 he was called to the Legislative Council, in which body he did good service in various measures of social reform. He was particularly responsible for the committee which was set up in 1871 to consider the establishment of a central asylum for persons of unsound mind, and he kept the subject before the public both in Parliament and in the press until the appointment of Dr Macgregor as inspector general of hospitals and lunatic asylums. In 1874 he retired from the Council and returned to live in England, where he died on 4 Sep 1877. He was a strong Anglican and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Colonial Institute.

N.Z.P.D.; Fulton (p); Otago Witness, 26 Oct 1866; Mar 1898 (jubilee); Otago Daily Times, 27 Jun 1872, 12 Sep 1877.

Reference: Volume 1, page 72

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