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On the 1st September 1856 Matthew Price laid the Foundation Stone of the Beechworth Hospital.
Matthew & Elizabeth Price had another daughter, Florence Blessington Price, born in 1861, after they went to live in New Zealand.
In 1876 Matthew Price was appointed Registrar of Marriages; Chairman of Licensing Courts; Licensing Officer, Kumara Special Licensing District; Registering Officer under Miners' Right Extension Act and Resident Magistrate, Okarito, on the West Coast South Island of New Zealand In 1883 Matthew Gaunt Price was appointed Resident Magistrate of Ashburton and Christchurch. New Zealand.
He died on 26 July 1883 in Gisborne New Zealand from Gangrene of the Right Foot for 13 days and Cirrhosis 3 months. Burial was on the 27 July 1883 in Plot No 93A at the Makaraka Cemetery (previously known as Houhoupiko Cemetery). The Headstone Reads: Matthew Price died 26 July 1883 age 66 years.
After contacting the Law Society of New Zealand I was fortunate in that the name Matthew Price appeared in several articles which had been written on the early days of the establishment of the Magistrates Courts in that Country.
There are two references to Matthew Price in "Portrait of a Profession" the Centennial Book of the New Zealand Law Society, published in 1969.
At Chapter 22 "Southland", page 352, it states:
"For a number of years there were lay Magistrates in Southland, including Henry McCulloch, Captain Matthew Price and Major Jackson Keddell, but Invercargill's first qualified legal practitioner was William Stuart, born in Edinburgh in 1823, who arrived in Otago in 1858 and was admitted as a barrister and solicitor at Dunedin in 1862."
The following obituary has been written of Matthew Price 1818-1893:
"He was well respected by those in all walks of life that knew him. It was said, 'that his life had personified truth and honesty and a man, gold would not have brought: nor any threat intimidated; nor persuasion have turned him from the direct line of his duty'."
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