Christopher Reilly

[2][3] Christopher Reilly is thought to have been born in Dublin, Ireland, though this and many of the details of his early life remain vague and contradictory.

Here in the Barbary Coast goldfields of California[3] he would befriend Horatio Hartley, a gold prospector from Ohio in the United States.

[1][5] Like many Victorian miners, Hartley and Reilly congregated at the Tuapeka goldfield (Lawrence) on the Clutha River (Māori: Mata-Au), although it is likely their past experience in California and Victoria drove them to search for gold in Central Otago's poorly-explored interior.

[10] Hartley and Reilly, in divulging the location of their rich finds (approximately one mile downstream of the confluence with the Kawarau River), were rewarded with £2000 from the Otago Provincial Government.

Reilly's imagination had been captured by the notion of a deep-sea harbour at Port Molyneux, at the mouth of the Clutha River, to serve the goldmining industry.

[5] He was reported in Tasmania in January 1863, where the Government wished to secure the services of Reilly to find a payable gold field.

[16] Reilly considered New Zealand to be: ... a far better country for an enterprising colonist than any part of the world he had visited, and that rich goldfields, yet to be worked, exist in it.Reilly intended to give practical proof of this faith by starting on a prospecting tour.

[21] Horatio Hartley and Christopher Reilly are remembered on a plaque (45°03′48″S 169°13′02″E / 45.063280°S 169.217262°E / -45.063280; 169.217262) in the Cromwell Gorge which was installed by the Otago Goldfields Heritage Trust.