As well as Lake Station (including Lake Rotoiti and Pourangahau / Mount Robert), Kerr also owned the 70,000 acres (28,000 ha) Tarndale Run and 30,000 acres (12,000 ha) around the Wairau River before entering into a business partnership with Molesworth Station owner Acton Adams.

[1] Early in his life, he was engaged in whaling in the Tory Channel / Kura Te Au.

[2] Following the resignation from Parliament of Joseph Shephard, who had been appointed to the Legislative Council, a Waimea by-election was held on 3 June 1885.

[5] In the 1890 general election, he contested the Nelson electorate and was narrowly defeated by Joseph Harkness.

[8] His grandson, the solicitor John Robert Kerr, unsuccessfully contested the Nelson electorate in the 1938 general election.