James Busby

Who was James Busby?

James Busby is widely regarded as the "father" of the Australian wine industry, as he took the first collection of vine stock from Spain and France to Australia. Later he became a British Resident who traveled to New Zealand, involved in the drafting of the Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand and the Treaty of Waitangi. As British Resident, he acted as New Zealand's first jurist, and the 'originator of law in Aotearoa', to whom New Zealand owes almost all of its underlying jurisprudence'.