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LARNACH, WILLIAM JAMES MUDIE (1838-98) was born at Castle Forbes, on the Hunter river, New South Wales, his father (James Larnach) having arrived in the Colony in 1822 as a cadet to Major Innes. Young Larnach was educated at Hetherington's High School, Singleton, Patrick Plains and Sydney College. As a boy he visited the goldfield discovered by Hargreaves, near Bathurst, and worked for four months on the Turon field. He spent some years on the land, and about 1863 entered the service of the Bank of New South Wales, eventually becoming manager of the Geelong branch. In 1866-67 he paid an extended visit to Europe with his family, and shortly after returning was offered from London the chief colonial management of the Bank of Otago. Larnach arrived in Dunedin in Sep 1867, and was successful until the London board agreed on a merger of the bank with the National. He remained in the service of the National for a year, and then retired to join Walter Guthrie in Guthrie and Larnach, ironmongers, hardware merchants and sawmillers. The firm languished in the eighties, and in 1887 Larnach went to Melbourne to start in business with Montague Pym. He soon returned to Dunedin, and was a director of the Colonial Bank until it merged in the Bank of New Zealand. Larnach was first induced to offer himself for Parliament in 1875, when he contested the Peninsula seat against Stout, and was defeated by 11 votes. At the general election next year he came forward for the City of Dunedin as a strong anti-abolitionist and was returned, with Stout and Macandrew. During the session of 1877 he moved the vote of no-confidence which resulted in the defeat of the Whitaker-Atkinson Government and was sent for by the Governor (Normanby). When Grey formed his ministry Larnach was Colonial Treasurer and Minister of Public Works and Railways. His financial policy included the nationalising of the land funds of the provinces. At the request of his colleagues he resigned his two principal portfolios and went to England early in 1878 to float a three-million loan. This he succeeded in doing, and he also arranged that the Bank of England should act as agents for such transactions instead of the private banking houses as hitherto. As one of the two commissioners from New Zealand to the Paris Exhibition of 1878 he spent several months in France. In 1879 he received the C.M.G. Meanwhile his colleagues had put in his resignation without calling him to the Council, and when he returned to New Zealand he was out of Parliament for two years. In Nov 1882 a vacancy occurred for the Peninsula seat through the death of the sitting member, and Larnach was returned, his principal opponent being Bishop Moran (q.v.). He declined to join the first Stout-Vogel Government in 1884. In Jan 1885 he was invited to join the second and (on condition that he had a free hand in developing mining) he accepted the portfolios of Mines and Marine, which he administered capably for more than two years. A promise to call him to the Legislative Council was not honoured, and he represented the Peninsula continuously until 1890. In that year the rising power of Labour, to which (although a Liberal) he would make no concessions, led to his defeat by Earnshaw. In 1893 Larnach contested Wakatipu against Fraser (without success), but on the death of Pyke he won the Tuapeka seat against M. J. S. Mackenzie (Jul 1894). He was a helpful critic of financial legislation, and suggested to Ward a means of financing advances to settlers without charging more than 3 per cent. interest. In 1891 he was chairman of the royal commission on the public trust. He was re-elected for Tuapeka in 1896. Larnach's activities in the financial world were wide and varied. Besides his own business in Dunedin, he was one of the promoters of the National Insurance Co. and a director until his death. He was a promoter of the Colonial Bank, and a director until he left the Colony in 1887, and again from his return until its amalgamation with the Bank of New Zealand. He was a director of the Kaitangata Coal Co. (1881-92).

Larnach married (1859) Eliza Jane (d. 1880), daughter of Richard Guise (New South Wales). In 1882 he married Mary Cockburn (d. 1887), daughter of R. J. Alleyne (Murrumbidgee, New South Wales). In 1891 he married Constance, daughter of A. de B. Brandon (q.v.). He died on 12 Oct 1898.

N.Z.P.D., 13 Oct 1898; Parltry Record; Cycl. N.Z., i (p); Ross; Gisborne; Saunders; N.Z. Herald, 28 Oct 1898; Otago Daily Times and Evening Star, 13 Oct 1898. Portrait: Parliament House.