Bannockburn is an industrial mining centre, four miles south-west from Cromwell near the Kawarau river. Here the search for gold is successfully carried on under the processes of quartz mining, dredging, and sluicing. On this account it is a place of considerable interest to visitors. There are also several successful coal pits in the neighbourhood. From the summit of the Carrick Range, which is easily accessible, the visitor sees a wide and magnificent panorama of mountain scenery. Bannockburn has a public school, post and telegraph office, a general store, and two hotels.

Mr. James Lawrence , sometime of Bannockburn, was born in Surrey, England, in 1841, came to Auckland, in the year 1857, by the ship “Tamar,” and learned his business as a baker at Waiuku. He went to the Snowy River “rush,” in New South Wales, in 1860, came in 1861 to Gabriel's Gully, and followed various other “rushes” in New Zealand. He and Mr. H. Robertson, under the style of Robertson and Lawrence, built the London Dining Rooms, in Jetty Street, Dunedin, and he subsequently established various bakeries on the diggings, notably at Nokomai, Nevis, Kawarau (now known as Cromwell), Fox's, Arthur's Point, Cardrona, and Bendigo. It may be interesting to note the prices of the four-pound loaf on the opening of these diggings. At Nokomai, its value was 6s, and the same price was also paid at the Nevis; at Arthur's Point it stood at 7s, while at Fox's “rush” it reached the abnormal price of 11s. When Mr. Lawrence commenced business at Fox's, there were no scales, and candles done up in packets, were used as one-pound weights. In 1863, Mr. Lawrence visited Sydney and Melbourne. During his trip he was married to a daughter of the late Mr. W. Rogers, and to them were born a family of five sons and five daughters. On his return to New Zealand, Mr Lawrence settled in Cromwell, and was for many years engaged in carting to the Carrick Range. Subsequently he built a hotel at Quartzville, a settlement on the Carrick Range, and in 1892 he settled in Bannockburn, where he had an adobe building, comprising shop, residence and bakery. Mr. Lawrence was for a long time interested in mining, and was the proprietor of the Day Dawn Quartz Mine and Battery, the Star of the East Quartz Mine, and the Young Australian Quartz Mine and Battery. He died on the 1st of April, 1900, having some time previously given up business. The property at Carrick Range is still in possession of the family, and Mrs Lawrence now (1904) lives at Arrowtown.

The Late Mr. J. Lawrence And Mrs Lawrence.

Anderson, William , Water-race and Dredge Proprietor, Bannockburn. Mr. Anderson was born at Cunningsburgh, near Lerwiek, in the Shetland Islands, in 1829, and was brought up on his father's farm, but went to sea when he was fifteen years of age. In 1854 he left his ship at Melbourne, and was on the Victorian diggings till 1862, when he settled in Otago. Since 1874 Mr. Anderson has been engaged in mining, nearly all the time at Bannockburn. During over forty years of experience as a miner, he has employed different methods, from the tub and cradle to the wondrous dredge, and he is still interested in mines, dredges and water-races. He has served on the local school committee for a good many years, and was chairman for two years. Mr. Anderson was married, in 1877, to a daughter of Mr. E. Thompson, Lerwick, and has two sons and three daughters.

Mr. W. Anderson.

Cromwell And Bannockburn Colleries Company, Limited; Mr. A. S. Gillanders, Manager. An article on Mr. Gillanders appears on page 451 of this volume, under Shag Point, where he was formerly Mine Manager for the Allandale Coal Company.