CARGILL, JOHN (1821-98) was a son of W. W. Cargill (q.v.). As a young man he served in the Royal Navy. He was for some years in the West Indies in the sloop Ringdove and the frigate Seringapatam. Retiring in 1840, he came to Tasmania (1841) and Port Phillip, cruised in the Pacific islands and eventually settled in Ceylon as a coffee planter. In 1846 he returned to England to assist his father in the Otago scheme, and they came out together in the John Wickliffe (1847).

Cargill took up a run on the coast at Tokomairiro, and later at Mt Stuart (with his station at Meadowbank). In 1861 (in partnership with his son-in-law, E. B. Anderson) he took the Teviot run, where they soon had a fine flock of 55,000 well-bred merino sheep. They had also a large property at Gladfield, in south Otago. Losses resulting from the rabbits were disastrous. Cargill was elected M.H.R. for the country district (1853) and represented it to 1858. In 1866 he was elected for Bruce, which he represented to 1870. In the Provincial Council he represented Tokomairiro (1855-58) and North Harbour (1863-67). Keenly interested in volunteering, he held a commission as ensign in the Edinburgh corps and took a course at the musketry school at Hythe (where he qualified as a first-class marksman). He was colonel in command of the Otago volunteers and militia.

Cargill married first the eldest daughter of John Jones. After her death (1868) he married a daughter of Dr Featherston. In 1882 he left for England and five years later settled in British Columbia, where he died on 2 Jan 1898.

Otago P.C. Proc.; Otago Daily Times, 9 Feb 1898.

Reference: Volume 1, page 86

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