The Office of the Official Assignee in Bankruptcy for the districts of Otago and Southland is in the Law Courts Buildings. Dunedin. A Court of Bankruptev is held about six times yearly, and is presided over by a Judge of the Supreme Court, who hears applications for discharges, and grants orders for winding up insolvent estates. Ordinary bankruptcy business is heard by the Official Assignee at his offices.

Mr. Charles Christie Graham , S.M., the Official Assignee, was born in Cupar, Fifeshire, Scotland, and educated at the Universities of St. Andrews and Edinburgh. He came to Australia in 1855, and carried on a large mercantile business in Melbourne in conjunction with his brothers. In 1866 he arrived in New Zealand, and took up a large sheep run on the Waitaki. Mr. Graham sat for Oamaru in the House of Representatives from 1869 to 1872, and afterwards on removing to the North Island, he represented Rangitikei in the Provincial Council of Wellington, and was Chairman of Committees. He was a member, and secretary of the Wellington Education Board, and also secretary of Wellington College Board of Governors. In 1878 Mr. Graham was appointed Town Clerk of Wellington, and five years later became Official Assignee in that city, with jurisdiction over Napier, Nelson, Marlborough, and Westland and in 1893 was transferred to Dunedin.