Provenance:

Wilkie Family Collection

Sir William Fox arrived in Wellington in 1852 and become editor of New Zealand Gazette and Britannia Spectator, before he was appointed Resident Agent at Nelson for the New Zealand Company. He subsequently played a leading part in politics and held the office of Premier on four occasions. He was knighted in 1879. In his early years in New Zealand Fox carried out much exploration in the Wairarapa and in the South Island.

Fox's greatest contribution to New Zealand history after the struggle for self-government in the 1850s was his work in Taranaki in the early 1880s as a member of the West Coast Commission, which consisted of Francis Dillon Bell and himself. A third commissioner, Hone Mohi Tawhai, declined to serve when he heard that his colleagues were to be Fox and Bell. No doubt he questioned the propriety of their appointments. The commission was charged with the duty of inquiring into the numerous promises and engagements allegedly made by successive government officials to the Taranaki Maori, and into the disputed land claims in that province. Fox had been a member of the government which had confiscated the land and with Bell had co-authored a pamphlet defending the Waitara purchase which had led to the war. Bell left for England as Agent General and Fox was left the daunting task of ensuring that the recommendations of the commission were carried out. He did an enormous amount of work and succeeded, not in satisfying the Maori, but in achieving a peaceful solution to Taranaki's land problems and in helping to establish a lasting peace. A grateful Parliament awarded him the large sum of £2,000.

Fox Glacier was named to commemorate his visit to the region as Prime Minister of New Zealand in 1872. The Wairarapa town of Foxton, founded in 1885, was also named after him.

In his later years Fox continued to undertake considerable physical exercise, climbing Mount Taranaki in 1892, aged 80. He died on 23 June 1893.

The Wilkie Collection of watercolours by Sir William Fox was deposited on loan to the Alexander Turnbull Library in 1964 by Mr & Mrs J C Wilkie. The collection consisted of some three hundred and fifty paintings of which one hundred were New Zealand scenes of significant historical importance. The Wilkie's lived and farmed at Ohingaiti, not far from Westoe, Fox's station in the Rangitikei.