GILLIES, JOHN LILLIE (1832-97) was born at Rothesay, Scotland, the son of John Gillies (q.v.), and educated at the parish school. In 1843 he went to Scougall's Academy.

In 1845 he joined the Western Bank of Scotland, and six years later sailed in the King William for Australia. In Victoria he went on a sheep and cattle run, visited the goldfields and thence passed to journalism. He joined the staff of the Geelong Advertiser (1854) and was accountant for some time. There he married and in 1855 he left in the Gil Blas for Otago, where his father and brothers were settled. Gillies took up a farm in Tokomairiro, and in 1861 went amongst the first to Gabriel's Gully. He had great influence with the diggers, and was closely associated with Gabriel Read (q.v.) in providing for their self-government and religious services.

In 1861 he was elected M.P.C. for Tokomairiro, which he represented to 1864. He was in the executive (1863-64) as provincial treasurer (under Dick), and showed great financial ability. In 1869 he was again in the Council for Tokomairiro, and he was in the executive (1869) as a non-official member (under Reid). In May 1871 he was returned for Port Chalmers and elected speaker. When Macandrew dissolved the Council (1873), as a protest against Reid being provincial secretary and a member of the General Government, Gillies opposed him for the superintendency, making an arduous campaign on horseback throughout the province. He was defeated (by 3,902 to 2,759), but regained his seat in the Council (for Milton) and also the speakership, which he held until the provinces were abolished. In 1873 he was elected to Parliament for Waikouaiti, but resigned in 1875 on accepting the position of secretary to the Otago harbour board.

Gillies was for some years editor of the Bruce Herald; was on the school committee at Tokomairiro and Union street, Dunedin; a member of the local committee for the New Zealand exhibition of 1865 and of the mining conference (1868). In 1869 he was chairman of the commission to draw up the basis of reunion of Otago and Southland, and in 1870 he reported to the Government on sludge channels on the goldfields. In 1873 he was on a commission (with J. P. Maitland and H. W. Robinson) to consider the complaints of Chinese residents at Wakatipu (1873). He was largely interested in the Table Hill Quartz Mining Co. Gillies died on 27 Sep 1897.

Otago P.C. Proc.; Hocken, Otago; Trans. N.Z. Inst., vols ii, ix, x; Pyke (p); Evening Star, 27 Dec 1897; Otago Daily Times, 27 Jul 1871, 28 Sep 1897. Portrait: Parliament House.

Reference: Volume 1, page 165

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