SHANKS, JAMES STEWART (1835-1911) was born in Scotland and came to Otago with his parents in the Kelso in 1849. In company with a brother he first worked at a sawmill in the bush near Clutha, and later on the survey of Southland under J. T. Thomson and Robert Gillies. A year or two later, with his brother William, he prospected for a station in north and central Otago and eventually acquired the Marairua run of 28,000 acres near Tuturau. He was chairman of the school committee and a member of the road board and of the Southland county council and education board. The brothers suffered from the depredations of diggers on their stock and from scab introduced into their flocks by sheep from Nelson. When the run was resumed by the Government, Shanks settled in Mataura (1862) as an auctioneer. He was a member of the county council and the education board and represented Mataura in Parliament from 1879 to 1881. He died on 13 Oct 1911.

Otago Witness, 2 Nov 1911; Kinross; Otago Daily Times, 6 Nov 1911

Reference: Volume 2, page 150

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