Mr. J. W. Kelly,

Invercargill.

Mr. J. W. Kelly,

James White Kelly was elected as a Labour Member by the Invercargill constituency in 1890. He is 40 years of age, having been born in Carluke, Lanarkshire, in 1855. Though left an orphan when fourteen years of age, he manfully set to work to carve out his own destiny. He made the best of the education the village school provided, and after serving his apprenticeship to the tailoring trade came to this Colony when twenty years of age, arriving in 1875. He mixed a good deal in local public affairs, being a town councillor for the borough of South Invercargill, and subsequently Mayor. At the time of his first election in 1890 he was Secretary of the Southland Trades Council, and Chairman of the local branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants.

Votes recorded, 3604; number on roll, 4608. Women on roll, 1968, of whom 1648 voted.