New Zealand adventurer and writer
William Jackson Barry (1819 – 23 April 1907) was a New Zealand adventurer and writer. He was born in Melbourn, Cambridgeshire, England on 1819, and between 1866 and 1868 was Mayor of Cromwell.
In 1883, Barry bought a whale skeleton that had beached itself on the sands in Nelson. Barry prepared and exhibited the skeleton at a Nelson store, and then on tour, before arriving in Dunedin. The "Otago Daily Times" reported that Barry opened the whale up to public inspection in a warehouse in St Andrews Street, even going so far as to hold a dinner party in its jaws. By August 1883, Barry had sold the fin whale to Otago Museum, where it is still on display.
Barry wrote a fantastical autobiography in 1878, "Up and Down: Or, Fifty Years' Colonial Experiences in Australia, California, New Zealand, India, China, and the South Pacific; Being the Life History of Capt. W. J. Barry". WRITTEN BY HIMSELF, 1878, with portrait of author, and other illustrations."
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