James Lalor : Short Biography

James LALOR was born in Co Kilkenny, Ireland, around1837-1838, to John and Mary Lalor. (Mary’s maiden surname isn’t known.)

It seems that he was quite a young man when he left Ireland. He was in Bendigo when the Eureka Stockade riots took place in Ballarat (in 1854) and has been described as a ‘distant relation’ of Peter Lalor who was prominent in the rebellion. He then became a butcher in Melbourne, and was a manager in Mr Pettie’s large butchery shop for several years.

He sailed in the ship ‘Lightning’ around 1867, and followed the early gold rushes at Addison’s Flat on the West Coast, but never met with much success there.

On 14th September 1871 he married Catherine ROWLAND in Greymouth. Catherine and James lived the rest of their lives at South Beach, Greymouth. They had six children, Margaret Jane, John, Mary, Robert, James and Thomas.

James mined for gold at South Beach. He was clearly accustomed to public speaking, and many references can be found to him in ‘Papers Past’, performing varied public roles.

In his later years James also became a ‘Parliamentary Messenger’. An article in 1901 in New Zealand Free Lance described him in favourable terms, noting that among the messengers in the recent session of the House of Representatives ‘there was one at least who bore a historic name and is a blood relation to two men who have achieved celebrity.’ The writer told us that James Lalor was a modest man: ‘Yet, Mr James Lalor, who came up from Greymouth to wear the livery of Parliament and who has just got back to the Coast this week to resume his avocation as a gold miner could boast of his family connections if he were not far too modest a man to say anything about himself at all.’  The writer then said that James Lalor was a ‘full cousin’ of the celebrated Irish orator, Richard Lalor Sheil.

I don’t know the townland James Lalor came from, though am slowly investigating the various John Lalors in Griffiths Valuations in Co Kilkenny. This connection with Richard Lalor Sheil might eventually help me narrow it down more!

James Lalor died at South Beach on 3 October 1916. In the Argus he was described as ‘well and favourably known throughout the West Coast’ and a ‘true and devoted father’. He is buried in Karoro Cemetery in Greymouth, together with his wife Catherine, and two grandchildren who died as infants.