Cadman Alfred Jerome Auckland Nz 1847 1891

nz Biography -By Graham Butterworth
edmondsallan - Good morning , many biographies can kick start your ancestral line of Knowledge . I was pulled over the coals for not acknowledging the web site & names and rightly so . As the editor said - Those who did the hard yards should be acknowledged . I apologize for my slip up . I was not trying to claim them as my own even if some of you may thing that . Explanation - I don't gain any credit from or great pat on the back in doing so .After Forty ( 40 ) years being at the top of something is not my personal goal . I have been their and done that . Without trying to sound like a big deal- and without any disrespect to anyone . It is a very small proportion in my total Researching / ancestral / genealogy work . I will admit I was trying to find a free website for all to share world wide any thing I came across in this work as many of the websites are starting to cost to much for ordinary people to get under way to know their original starting points . I hope I am putting before you in all these journals / biographies / some of our personal family records , something any one can get their teeth into and enjoy what I have for many many years . Yes you can also make distant friends with many who live in another country . That I really cherish !!! Having tried to correct and do it the right way ( our editor is absolutely right in wanting correct proceedure. ) Lets push the pedal to the metal
Sawmiller, politician Alfred Jerome Cadman was born in Sydney, Australia, on 17 June 1847, the son of Jerome Cadman, a cabinet-maker, and his wife, Ann Hildyard. The family came to Auckland, New Zealand, in 1848. Jerome Cadman owned and operated a sawmill in the Coromandel goldfield from 1855 and was later a successful builder and contractor in Auckland. He returned to the Coromandel region in 1867. He served on the abortive Auckland City Council from 1854 to 1855 and on the Auckland Provincial Council, representing Northern Division (1859–67) and Coromandel (1870–76).

Alfred Cadman was educated at the parish schools of St Matthew's and St Paul's, and at Wesley College; he then completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter. He served with the volunteer forces during the wars of the 1860s. At the age of 21 he entered the sawmilling business at Coromandel, and appears to have been very successful as a businessman.

Cadman entered politics through local body affairs, serving as a member then chairman of the Tiki Highway Board. From 1877 to 1886 he was the first chairman of the Coromandel County Council. In 1881 he was elected to Parliament to represent Coromandel, retaining the seat in the 1884 and 1887 elections. He won the enlarged seat of Thames in 1890. Cadman married Fannie Bell at Whangarei on 15 April 1886; they were to have a daughter and two sons before Fannie's death in 1892.

Cadman was initially identified as a supporter of Sir George Grey. Unlike Grey, who was embittered at being omitted from the cabinet, he supported the second Stout–Vogel ministry from 1884 until its defeat in October 1887. He was a member of the caucus that elected John Ballance as leader of the opposition in July 1889, and from then on was firmly identified with the Liberal cause.

In his first years in Parliament Cadman seems to have made no great impression. He was a 'quiet, pleasant mannered man, who only spoke when he had something to say.' What he did say was well and sometimes forcefully expressed. His principal contribution to parliamentary proceedings was to ask questions on local or mining issues, particularly on the long-lasting campaign that Richard Seddon ran to abolish the duty on gold. Nevertheless, Cadman represented important elements in the Liberal alliance. His business interests and local body activities had enabled him to develop a network of contacts among the numerous and often isolated townships and rural districts of his electorates. He had, therefore, much in common with the country Liberals' emphasis on building roads and bridges and facilitating closer land settlement.

But goldminers and timber workers were the dominant groups in the Coromandel, Thames and Ohinemuri electorates, and Cadman's horizons were therefore a little wider than those of the typical country member. Like Seddon, he seems to have had some – rather paternalistic – sympathy for labour reform. In 1886 he supported the movement for an eight-hour working day, although he believed it would be better established by custom than by law. He also initially supported the extension of the franchise to women, but later cooled towards the idea because of the uncertain political consequences; he did, however, vote in favour of it.

One issue about which Cadman had decided opinions was the question of Maori lands, which was clearly bound up with his commitment to closer land settlement. Following the election of the Liberal government in 1890, Premier John Ballance took the native affairs portfolio and set up the Native Land Laws Commission headed by W. L. Rees. The commission produced a scathing indictment of the Native Land Court for not recognising the tribal principle in Maori land tenure. It also proposed involving Maori owners in the management of their lands, recommended a native land titles court to validate disputed titles, and, with James Carroll dissenting, favoured resuming Crown pre-emption, a measure which Cadman personally supported. Till we meet again - Regards - edmondsallan