Josiah Firth

Josiah Clifton Firth (27 October 1826 – 11 December 1897) was a New Zealand farmer, businessman and politician who had a brief brush with fame as the messenger between Te Kooti and the New Zealand Government during Te Kooti's War.

Born in Clifton, West Yorkshire, England, Firth came from a family background interested in farming and industrial development. He had a well rounded education. He moved to New Zealand in the early 1850s and settled in Auckland where he began making bricks and also took a one third interest in a steam powered flour mill in 1856. In 1859 he made his first visit to Matamata where he met and became friendly with Wiremu Tamihana, the King Maker.

In Auckland he was one of a small group of highly influential business men such as John Logan Campbell, Frederick Whitaker and Thomas Morrin. They had significant influence on The Bank of New Zealand and the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company. Firth was always able to borrow finance to capitalize his many innovative schemes.

Firth briefly entered Parliament for the Auckland West electorate. He was elected in 1861, and resigned on 30 April 1862. He promoted the purchase of land directly from Maori as had happened in the Wairarapa. This contravened the Treaty of Waitangi but had been a mechanism used from time to time in localized issues when Maori agreed.

In 1865 with the establishment of peace in the Waikato, Firth was able to lease land from Wiremu Tamihana of Ngati Haua, a kingitanga tribe. Tamihana, who was a Christian, had been at the core of the Kingite movement but was at heart a man of peace. A large area of land around Matamata was leased for a rental of up to five hundred pounds a year. Two years later he bought outright some of the land covered by the lease and this became the basis of his estate at Matamata. By 1865 Firth had leased 55,000 acres."The fern and bracken covered plains was burnt and soon sown in grassland and feed crops such as turnips".

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