The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/M'Lean, Hon. George
M‘Lean, Hon. George, M.L.C. New Zealand, son of James M‘Lean and Jane (Procter) his wife, was born at Elgin, Scotland, on Sept. 10th, 1834. Having emigrated to Melbourne, Vict., in 1851, where he was connected with the Oriental Bank Corporation, he went to Otago, N.Z., in 1862, as manager of the Dunedin branch of the Bank of New Zealand, and was Provincial Treasurer in 1869. Mr. M‘Lean, who went largely into commercial pursuits, represented Waikonaiti in the New Zealand House of Representatives for a period of ten years, and was nominated to the Legislative Council in 1881. He was a member of the Vogel Ministry from July to Sept. 1876, as Commissioner of Customs; and when the Ministry was reconstructed, after the departure of Sir Julius Vogel to England, under Major Atkinson, Mr. M‘Lean was Postmaster-General from Sept. 1876 to Oct. 1877. Mr. M‘Lean who was married at Dunedin, N.Z., on March 10th, 1867, to Miss Isabel Holmes, was Commissioner of Trade and Customs in the short-lived Atkinson Government in 1884. He is chairman of the Colonial Bank of New Zealand and of the Union Steam Shipping Company of New Zealand, Limited, and took a prominent part in the settlement of the great maritime strike of 1890.