John McLean was a runholder, first in Australia and then in New Zealand.
Background
McLean was born on College in 1818, one of the islands of the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. His father, Alexander McLean, was a farmer and fisherman who lived on Lagmor, where he drowned in 1836. After his father"s death, his mother, Mary, could not make a living with the lands left to her and they were in a penurious state.
Career
John McLean was also a politician, and he served on the Otago Provincial Council and the New Zealand Legislative Council. Initially, the family was sustained by the large tracts of land they owned on the Isles of Tiree and Mull as well as on the mainland at Mowern and Ardnamurchan. But over the years, they needed additional resources to make a livelihood and resorted to fisheries.
They capitalised on the Victorian gold rush by supplying the goldfields region, becoming runholders.
In 1852, the brothers purchased the Ashfield run adjacent to the Waimakariri River in Canterbury, New Zealand, and the family moved to that country. Robertson returned to Scotland, where he died in 1871, but Allan and John owned runs in Canterbury, Otago, and Morven Hills, acquiring the Waikakahi property near Waimate from a Mr.
Harris in 1866. Their sister Alexandrina (known to the family as Lexie) had married George Buckley in 1860, and Buckley became a shareholder in the Waikakahi run, but sold out to the brothers in 1875.
In 1880, Allan and John"s partnership ended. John and Allan McLean were New Zealand"s largest owners of sheep by numbers.
John McLean eventually settled in Oamaru, North Otago. McLean represented the Oamaru Town electorate on the Otago Provincial Council from 6 March 1871 until the abolition of the provincial government system on 31 October 1876.
He died at Redcastle, a suburb of Oamaru, on 15 July 1902, having never married.
His Redcastle land later became Street Kevin"s College. In his will, McLean left funds for a clock and chimes to be added to the clock tower of the Oamaru Chief Post Office.
Membership
He was member of the New Zealand Legislative Council from 10 April 1867 to 21 August 1872, when he resigned.