Johann Friederich August Kelling, JP

Johanna Kelling died in childbirth in July 1848 at Ranzau, leaving Fedor with two sons and a daughter. On 10 February 1855 at Ranzau he married Rose Mary Etty. Six months later he was again a widower. He was elected a director of the Settlers Cattle Fair Association in 1853, and in 1854 helped establish the Nelson Agricultural Association, serving as secretary until 1862. He also served on the road boards in the Waimea district, and as Waimea East's representative on the Central Board of Education for Nelson. In the provincial council he represented Waimea East from 1857 to 1863, and from 1865 to 1876, and for a few months in 1860 was MHR for Waimea. In 1859 he became a justice of the peace. In 1863 Fedor Kelling was sent to Europe as a government agent to arrange for German military settlers to emigrate to Taranaki. With the outbreak of war, the scheme fell through. He returned to Nelson with his third wife, Dorothea (Doris) Wilhelmine Kuskop, whom he had married in Germany in 1863 or 1864. She died in June 1865, soon after the birth of their only child, a son. In 1867 Fedor was appointed a German consul in New Zealand, a position he held until, at his own recommendation, the consulate was abolished in 1886. He was awarded the Order of the Crown of Prussia for his service. He died in Nelson on 24 October 1909.