Biography

Bryan Cecil Haggitt (1838-1898)

B.C. Haggitt was Crown Solicitor for Otago and occupied a leading place in the legal profession in Dunedin. He was born in 1838 in Toronto, Canada, and moved to Hobart, Tasmania when he was three. There he received his education and was admitted a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Tasmania in 1861. In May 1862 he and his brother D’Arcy came to Dunedin and established the law firm, Messrs Haggitt Bros. He became the member for Dunedin to the Provincial Council of Otago in 1865 and in 1866 became Provincial Solicitor, which he held almost continuously until the abolition of the provinces in 1876. He was instrumental in forming the Otago Law Society and the New Zealand Law Society. He was gazetted a Justice of the Peace and Resident Magistrate at Dunedin in May 1865. He was the first Church Advocate appointed in Dunedin, and was the Chancellor of the Diocese of Dunedin for several years until the time of his death.

Bryan Haggitt married twice – first in 1861 to Catherine Isabella Robertson of Tasmania who died on 24th December 1881 aged 40, leaving three sons and four daughters; and second in February 1883 to Jessie Margaret Tolmie, daughter of the late W. A. Tolmie of Dunedin. By this marriage he had five sons and four daughters. Bryan and Jessie lived at Andersons Bay, Dunedin and it would appear that they had a very comfortable lifestyle.

Mr Haggitt died of heart disease on the 1st February 1898 aged 59 and is buried in the historic Northern Cemetery, Dunedin. Several of his family members are buried in this same family plot, including Jessie. There is also a large memorial to his first wife, Catherine Isabella Robertson.