DALRYMPLE, PETER (1813-1901) was born in Galloway, educated in the parish school and reared on the farm at Newluce. As a young man he went to Manchester, where he engaged in the drapery trade with considerable success until 1853. During this time he was deeply interested in Liberal politics, took a part in the activities of the Anti-Corn Law League and saw something of Bright and Cobden.

In 1853 he purchased 60 portable houses constructed at Liverpool and shipped with them to Melbourne, where he sold them at a good profit. After two years in Australia he shipped a supercargo in the schooner Caledonia, bound for Port Chalmers and the Chatham Islands. Enamoured of Otago, he finished his engagement at Melbourne and came to settle in New Zealand (Nov 1855). From Dunedin he walked to Bluff, taking 19 days on the journey. In Apr 1856 he took up a 100-acre section which he named Appleby after a Wigtownshire village, erected one of his houses upon it and lived and farmed there for the remainder of his life.

A Manchester Liberal by upbringing, Dalrymple was a progressive in politics and as a member of the Southland Provincial Council (Oreti 1867-69, Roslyn 1869-70), he voiced advanced opinions on many subjects. He was a strong advocate of the Seaward Bush railway, and in his later years, incapacitated from work, interested himself in the establishment of a woollen mill in Southland, an object which he saw achieved, though not in his way. Dalrymple died on 17 Sep 1901.

Parlty Record; Kinross; Southland Times, 18 Sep 1901.

Reference: Volume 1, page 112

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