Name

Balfour, James Melville

Type

Architect

Biography

James Balfour was born and educated in Edinburgh where he subsequently entered the family business of D & T Stevenson & Co, contracting engineers to the Scottish Light(house) Service. On Stevenson & Co's recommendation Balfour was appointed to the position of Marine Engineer to the Otago Provincial Government and he arrived in New Zealand on 23 September 1863 to take up the post. In his capacity as Marine Engineer Balfour surveyed the Clutha River and the Molyneux and Waikawa harbours, designed the Otago graving dock, was a member of the Dunedin' Sanitary Commission, and reported on the proposed harbours of New Plymouth, Timaru and Wanganui. Of greater significance, however, was Balfour's contribution to the national lighthouse system. He designed the lights at Taiaroa Head (1864), Dog Island (1865), Farewell Spit (1870), Nugget Point (1870), Cape Campbell (1870), Ponui Passage (1871), Bean Rock (1872), and Cape Saunders (1880). Although the lighthouses at Taiaroa Head and Dog Island were both of masonry construction Balfour came to favour the erection of timber lighthouses as they could be built much more rapidly. Having been promoted to the position of General Government Marine Engineer, Inspector of Steamers and Superintendent of Lighthouses in October 1866, Balfour's other legacies to the country's lighthouse system were the first regulations governing the conduct of lighthouse keepers and the use of Stevenson's lanterns and optics by the Marine Department. James Balfour drowned during an official visit to Timaru harbour in December 1869 at the age of thirty-eight, but he is remembered in engineering histories as being one of a number of outstanding engineers who did so much to further the development of the colony.