James Gear ( – 5 April 1911) was a New Zealand butcher, farmer and businessman.

Biography

He was born in

Ilchester Ilchester is a village and civil parish, situated on the River Yeo or Ivel, five miles north of Yeovil, in the English county of Somerset. Originally a Roman town, and later a market town, Ilchester has a rich medieval history and was a notable ...

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

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in about 1839. Gear founded the Gear Meat Preserving and Freezing Company at Petone in 1882 and was its managing director until 1885. In 1891 he was made patron of the Wellington United Butchers' Association in appreciation of his work and efforts to help others in the trade. Gear built a house for his family at Porirua which he called 'Okowai' but which is now known as the Gear Homestead and managed by

Heritage New Zealand Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga (initially the National Historic Places Trust and then, from 1963 to 2014, the New Zealand Historic Places Trust) ( mi, Pouhere Taonga) is a Crown entity with a membership of around 20,000 people that advocate ...

. Gear's health declined as he got older, possibly as a result of a back injury sustained as a young man. He needed a wheelchair and couldn't cope with his noisy family, so he had built an annex next to his home which was connected to the main house by a ramp. Gear lived there attended by a nurse and servant. Gear died at home in 1911 and was buried at Porirua Cemetery.

References

1830s births 1911 deaths New Zealand farmers New Zealand businesspeople English emigrants to New Zealand People from Somerset Burials at Porirua Cemetery {{NewZealand-business-bio-stub