The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Hislop, Hon. Thomas William
Hislop, Hon. Thomas William, sometime a Minister of the Crown in New Zealand, is the son of John Hislop, LL.D. (q.v.) and Johanna Campbell (Horne) his wife. He was born on April 8th, 1850, at Kirknewton, near Edinburgh, and arrived in Dunedin, N.Z., with his parents in Sept. 1856. Having embraced the legal profession, he was admitted a barrister and solicitor of New Zealand in August 1871, and was Crown solicitor at Oamaru from 1872 to 1876, when he was returned to the House of Representatives, in which he sat till 1880, when he resigned, but again held a seat from 1885 to 1890, when he was defeated at the general election. Mr. Hislop was Colonial Secretary in the last Atkinson Government from Oct. 1887 to Sept. 1889, and Minister of Education in the same Cabinet from July to Sept. 1889 and from Oct. 1889 to Jan. 1891, when Sir Harry Atkinson resigned. Mr. Hislop was appointed an officer of the Legion of Honour by the French Government in consideration of his services in securing the effective representation of New Zealand at the Paris Exhibition in 1889. He married in 1873 Miss Simpson, of Dunedin, and practises as a barrister at Wellington.