The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Moss, Frederick Joseph
Moss, Frederick Joseph, was born at St. Helena in 1829. From St. Helena he went to Cape Colony, where he was trained to business in a merchant's office, and later on served as a burgher in the Kaffir war. In 1859 he emigrated to New Zealand, landing in Canterbury, where he at once organised and became captain of No. 3 Company of Volunteers, and took an active interest in supporting the construction of the tunnel which connects Christchurch with the port of Lyttelton. On the discovery of gold in Otago, he removed to Dunedin, where he entered into business and again took an Interest in volunteering, being elected captain of the first company there organised. In 1862 he was elected a member of the Otago Provincial Council, and shortly afterwards accepted the office of Provincial Treasurer, retaining that position till 1866, when he was succeeded by Mr. (now Sir Julius) Vogel, whose policy, local or general, he has always consistently and unflinchingly opposed. In 1868 Mr. Moss went to Fiji and established himself as a planter on the Rewa River, but finding the climate injurious to his health, he returned to New Zealand and settled at Auckland, where he was elected a member of the House of Representatives for Parnell in 1876, and sat continuously for that borough until 1890, when he was appointed British Resident at Rarotonga, a position which he still holds. In 1888 Mr. Moss made a seven months' cruise on a schooner through the South Sea Islands, and published an account of his trip in a volume entitled "Through Atolls and Islands in the Great South Sea" (Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1889). He is also the author of a "School History of New Zealand" (Brett, Auckland, publisher).