Lewis Hotop

He initially worked for Hallenstein and Company, and later bought their pharmacy business on the corner of Rees and Ballarat Streets.

[3][4] By 1873 he was registered by the Otago provincial government as a vendor of poisons[5] and he purchased a newsagent business in Clyde later that year.

[13] In 1886, he was appointed a member of a committee seeking to establish a branch of the Otago School of Mines in Queenstown[14] and elected vice-president of the Lakes District Acclimatisation Society.

[25] He also served as a trustee on the Wakatipu District Hospital Board[26] and secretary of the Queenstown branch of the Otago Expansion League.

[27] Hotop was a passionate tree planter and was largely responsible for plantings around the shores of Lake Wakatipu and town environs.

Hotop was defended by the government ministers of the day, who noted his naturalised status, his long and ongoing contributions to the Queenstown community and his family members' service in the New Zealand armed forces, including one severely wounded at Gallipoli.