Bryan Cecil and Catherine Haggitt (née Robertson)

The Haggitts are one of the great legal dynasties of Dunedin. Members of the family practised law in Dunedin for five generations, beginning when Bryan Cecil Haggitt first arrived from Hobart in 1862. He was born in 1838 in Toronto, Canada, where his father D’Arcy Haggitt was a lawyer. The family then migrated to Tasmania where Bryan and his brother, also D’Arcy, undertook their legal training under their father.

Bryan Haggitt came over to Dunedin on the Wild Wave in 1862. The city’s rapid expansion, fuelled by the discovery of gold in Central Otago, was matched by a commensurate growth in the legal profession. The proliferation of new businesses, increasing land sales, and the rise in crime all required a matching expansion in the machinery of the law. Bryan Haggitt established a Dunedin practice that quickly prospered and was joined in 1866 by his father. After Haggitt senior’s death in 1869, Bryan’s brother D’Arcy joined him in partnership from 1871.

Bryan Haggitt became a prominent member of Dunedin society. He was elected to the Provincial Council in 1865 and then became Provincial Solicitor, a post he held almost until the abolition of the provinces in 1876. He was also the Crown Solicitor in Dunedin from 1867 until his death. He was renowned for his conscientiousness and his fairness and represented many of the Otago’s largest companies, local bodies and the university. A pillar of the Dunedin legal community, he exemplified the best qualities of the generation of lawyers attracted to Otago in the 1860s. He was also a loyal servant of the Anglican Church. He was a great friend and adviser to the Bishop of Dunedin for many years, the first Church Advocate in Dunedin and chancellor of the diocese.

Bryan Haggitt was also a great family man. He married Catherine Robertson in Tasmania in 1861 and they had 10 children together. After her death in 1881, Bryan married Jessica Tolmie and had a further nine children. The legal practice must have been suitably lucrative because the large Haggitt clan lived in a fine mansion, ‘Wychwood’, in Belmont Lane, Musselburgh. Bryan Haggitt died in 1898 aged 59.