Joseph Ivess

The family emigrated to Melbourne, Australia on the barque, Alcyone, leaving Liverpool in September 1852.

Ivess probably found employment rapidly as the manager of the New Zealand Celt, the Irish Catholic Party's newspaper whose proprietor John Manning was charged with seditious libel for erecting a memorial to the Fenian martyrs of Manchester in the Hokitika Cemetery.

Conservative libel laws were retained in New Zealand long after they had been redrafted in England and resulted in frequent lawsuits of which Ivess attracted his fair share.

[citation needed] He remained in and about the West Coast for the next eight years, but after 1875 his base became the Canterbury region, and particularly Ashburton.

[8] Ivess represented the Inangahua electorate on the Nelson Provincial Council from 21 January 1873 until the abolition of the Provinces on 31 October 1876.

In September 1875, the first hint appeared that he would challenge Harry Atkinson in the Egmont electorate at the next general election, although it was clear that he would not stand a chance against the Colonial Treasurer.

[3][13] Ivess contested the Wakanui electorate in South Canterbury in the 1881 election against Cathcart Wason and Charles Purnell.

[21] Having moved to the North Island, Ivess contested the Napier electorate in the 1887 election against the incumbent John Davies Ormond, but was beaten.

"[3] Ivess stood in several more elections,[3] including Ashburton in 1896,[23] and Selwyn in 1902, 1905 and 1908 (every time beaten by Charles Hardy).

[27] Ivess died on 4 September 1919 in Christchurch, New Zealand and was buried at Linwood Cemetery two days later.

At 1,749 m (5,738 ft), it is the tallest peak in the Victoria Ranges, between Reefton, Springs Junction and Maruia, in the South Island.