KELLY, JOHN LIDDELL (1850-1925) was a native of the village of Calder, near Airdrie, Scotland, where his father was employed as a blacksmith and was known as a poet and orator. At the age of 11 John entered upon his seven years apprenticeship to the Airdrie Advertiser, where he learned clerical work, kept accounts and reported the law courts. In 1870 he married, and in 1875 he was sent to Rutherglen, where he published, managed and edited the Rutherglen Reformer and acted as district representative of the Glasgow Herald and Evening Times. He was already doing exercises in verse which developed later into a happy and sometimes playful muse.

In 1881 Kelly left Scotland in the Algoa Bay for New Zealand and, finding his way to Auckland, joined the staff of the Star as a compositor and reader. He later became sub-editor, and in 1885 went in the schooner Janet Nicoll to report for the Government and the Auckland chamber of commerce on trade openings in the Pacific islands. His report was published in 1885. This voyage inspired Kelly to write his poem Tahiti and the libretto of a comic opera Pomare (1885).

In 1888 he left the Star to become part proprietor and editor of the New Zealand Observer which he controlled until an unfavourable verdict for damages led to his parting with his interest. He then reported in Parliament for a while and became sub-editor of The Globe (Dunedin). A few months later he joined the literary staff of the Lyttelton Times, of which he was sub-editor until being appointed in 1898 editor of the New Zealand Times.

On leaving this post (in 1906) Kelly edited for a short time the Tribune, at Hilo, Hawaii, and the Ashburton Guardian, and then took up his residence in Auckland, where he did a variety of literary work.

In 1902 Kelly published a collection of his verse under the title Heather and Fern. He adventured a little into philosophy with such pamphlets as The Cult of the Occult and The End of Time, and finally into British Israelitism. He died on 10 Dec 1925.

Kelly, op. cit.; Who's Who N.Z., 1908; N.Z. Times and Auckland Star, 11 Dec 1925.

Reference: Volume 1, page 244

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