PRENDERGAST, SIR JAMES (1826-1921) was the youngest son of Michael Prendergast, Q.C., of the Middle Temple, recorder of Norwich, and one of the most prominent special pleaders in the sixties. His mother was the sister of George Dawe, R.A. Educated at St Paul's School, he proceeded to Cambridge, entering at Gonville and Caius. Afterwards he went on an entrance scholarship to Queen's College, where he graduated B.A. (1849). For a short time in 1850 he was master at Routledge's school, Bishopshill, Somersetshire.

With his brother Philip and others Prendergast emigrated to Victoria in the Francis Henty (1852), and had some success with a claim at the Eureka diggings, Ballarat. Suffering a bad attack of dysentery, they withdrew to Melbourne, where their elder brother was practising at the bar. Prendergast was appointed clerk of petty sessions at Elephant Bridge, and promoted to Carisbrook, and in 1854 to Maryborough. His wife having joined him (1856), they returned to England and he read law at the Inner Temple, where he was called in the same year. He practised in London as a special pleader until the death of his father (1859), and he sailed for Otago in the ship Chile (1862). He was admitted a barrister of the Supreme Court, and his first client was Sir Julius Vogel. Towards the end of 1863 he was appointed a revising officer and acting-provincial solicitor in place of T. B. Gillies. In 1865 he was appointed crown prosecutor in Dunedin. Prendergast was called to the Legislative Council in Jul 1865 and in Jun 1866 was appointed Attorney-general (then a non-political office) and conveyancing counsel for the examination of titles. The office being later provided for by act, Prendergast resigned from the Legislative Council and from his Otago offices and practice, and in Mar 1867 was appointed Attorney-general under the new conditions. During the next seven years he set himself the task of consolidating the criminal law of the Colony, and succeeded in getting passed by Parliament no less than 94 acts with this object. Gisborne considered that his progress was the gradual outcome of laborious work and steady perseverance. He was slow, sure and safe, careful and cautious. He was not a politician, and therefore did not suffer from his inability to speak well. He was a member of a commission which changed the common law procedure to the present system. His legal opinions Gisborne says were literary labyrinths, but when the meaning was found it was well worth the trouble. In Apr 1875, on the retirement of Arney, Prendergast was appointed Chief Justice, a position which he occupied for almost a quarter of a century. In his early years he had to preside at all sittings of the Supreme Court in Wellington, on the west coast of both islands and as far north as Gisborne and Wanganui. One of his noted cases was the Attorney-general's appeal for the cancellation of the commission appointing W. B. Edwards (q.v.) as a judge of the Supreme Court. The contention of Prendergast and Conolly that the appointment was ultra vires was overruled by the majority, but upheld by the Privy Council. He was also upheld by the Privy Council against a majority of the Appeal Court of New Zealand in the celebrated Horowhenua block judgment. In 1881 he was knighted (K.B.).

Prendergast was elected a fellow of the New Zealand University (1885). In 1891 he represented New Zealand at the conference in London on the Privy Council. In 1897 he went as commissioner to Rarotonga to inquire into the proceedings of a prominent official there. While Chief Justice, he was six times administrator of the government pending the arrival of a new governor. On one of these occasions (1881) it fell to him to sanction the operations against the natives at Parihaka. He resigned the office of Chief Justice in May 1899. Thereafter he devoted himself to business interests, being for some time a director of the Bank of New Zealand and until his death of the Wellington Trust, Loan and Investment Co. and of the Colonial Mutual Life Co. Prendergast owned from 1871 to 1910 the Tiritea estate (at Fitzherbert and Bunnythorpe) and was the first president of the Manawatu Agricultural and Pastoral association. He died on 27 Feb 1921.

Family information; Cycl. N.Z., i; N.Z.P.D., 1 Mar 1921; Gisborne; N.Z. Times, 19 Jan 1883, 28 Feb 1921. Portraits: by J. M. Nairn in Supreme Court, Wellington; General Assembly Library.

Reference: Volume 2, page 95

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