Thomas Lindsay Buick was a Liberal

New Zealand Liberal Party

The New Zealand Liberal Party is generally regarded as having been the first real political party in New Zealand. It governed from 1891 until 1912. Out of office, the Liberals gradually found themselves pressed between the conservative Reform Party and the growing Labour Party...

 Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Wairau, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, a journalist and a historian. He published under the name T. Lindsay Buick.

Member of Parliament

Thomas Buick represented the Wairau

Wairau (New Zealand electorate)

Wairau was a parliamentary electorate in the Marlborough Region of New Zealand, from 1853 to 1938.-History:Wairau was one of the original electorates for the first general election in 1853....

 electorate in the New Zealand House of Representatives

New Zealand House of Representatives

The New Zealand House of Representatives is the sole chamber of the legislature of New Zealand. The House and the Queen of New Zealand form the New Zealand Parliament....

 from 1890 to 1896, when he was defeated. The 1896 general election

New Zealand general election, 1896

The New Zealand general election of 1896 was held on Wednesday, 4 December in the general electorates, and on Thursday, 19 December in the Māori electorates to elect a total of 74 MPs to the 13th session of the New Zealand Parliament...

 was contested by Buick and Charles H Mills

Charles H Mills

Charles Houghton Mills was a Member of Parliament for Waimea and Wairau, in the South Island of New Zealand.-Early life:...

, who received 2014 and 2072 votes, respectively. Mills thus succeeded Buick.

Historical work

Buick wrote numerous works on the pre-European and early contact history New Zealand, and two books on music. His The Treaty of Waitangi

Treaty of Waitangi

The Treaty of Waitangi is a treaty first signed on 6 February 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and various Māori chiefs from the North Island of New Zealand....

: or, How New Zealand became a British Colony (1916) remained the only substantial work on the Treaty until the late 1980s.

Later, he was owner/publisher of the Dannevirke

Dannevirke

Dannevirke , is a rural service town in the Manawatu-Wanganui Region of the North Island, New Zealand. It is the major town of the administrative Tararua District, the easternmost of the districts in which the Regional Council has responsibilities...

'Advocate'.

Published work

• Old Marlborough: or, The Story of a Province (1900)
• Old Manawatu: or, The Wild Days of the West (1903)
• Old New Zealander: or, Te Rauparaha, the Napoleon of the South (1911)
• Letters from Abroad (1914)
• The Treaty of Waitangi: or, How New Zealand became a British Colony (1916)
• New Zealand's First War: or, The Rebellion of Hone Heke (1926)
• Romance of the Gramophone (1927)
• French at Akaroa: An Adventure in Colonization (1928)
• Jubilee of the Port of Wellington, 1880-1930 (1930)
• Mystery of the Moa: New Zealand's Avian Giant (1931)
• British Residency at Waitangi (1932)
• Waitangi: Ninety-four Years After (1934)
• Old British Residency at the Bay of Islands (1934)
• Centenary of a Flag: New Zealand's Old National Ensign (1934)
• Elijah: The Story of Mendelssohn’s Oratorio (1935)
• The Discovery of Dinornis: The Story of a Man, a Bone, and a Bird (1936)
• Moa-Hunters of New Zealand: Sportsmen of the Stone Age (1936)