Fedor Kelling

Fedor Kelling JP
Fedor Kelling in 1895, wearing the badge of the Order of the Crown
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Waimea
In office 1859–1860
Preceded by	William Travers
Succeeded by	Alfred Saunders
Majority	elected unopposed
Personal details
Born	11 February 1820 Klütz, Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
Died	24 October 1909(1909-10-24) (aged 89) Nelson

John Fedor Augustus Kelling, JP (11 February 1820 – 24 October 1909), known as Fedor Kelling, was a 19th-century Member of the New Zealand Parliament, representing Nelson. A leader of a group of immigrants from Germany, he also served as the German consul.

Kelling was born as Johann Friederich August Kelling in Klütz, Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, where he became a farmer. Johann Kelling married Johanna Friederica Christiana Lampe in 1842. Their first child was born in the following year.

Kelling, his brother Carl and the Hamburg merchant Johann Ferdinand Benoit were asked by Count Kuno zu Rantzau-Breitenburg to manage a German immigration project to New Zealand. Together with German emigrants, the Kelling family and Carl left for New Zealand on the Skjold on 21 April 1844 from Hamburg. They reached Nelson on 1 September of that year. Kelling had two further children in New Zealand, but his wife died after child birth on 28 July 1848. In New Zealand, Kelling changed his name to John Fedor Augustus Kelling, and he was known as Fedor Kelling.

The settlement of Nelson was organised by the New Zealand Company. The affairs in Nelson were poorly organised and the company was in debt. William Fox had been sent in to improve the situation. The day before the German settlers arrived, Fox had suspended the public works scheme, resulting in work opportunities for settlers diminishing. Benoit was discouraged by this and returned home early in the next year. The Kellings and their settlers took up 350 acres (1.4 km²) in a locality that they called Ranzau. Other land was added to it, and soon they had planted field crops, fruit trees, vines, walnuts, hops and tobacco. Houses were built, a pastor arrived, a church was built and the whole developed into a village, which these days is known as Hope.

Kelling was a member of various organisations, including the Settlers Cattle Fair Association, the Nelson Agricultural Association, several road boards, and the Central Board of Education for Nelson. He became a Justice of the Peace in 1859. In 1863, he was sent as an immigration agent to Germany for Taranaki settlers, but the scheme fell through with the outbreak of the Second Taranaki War.