Frederick Joseph Moss (1827/1828 – 8 July 1904) was a New Zealand politician who served as a member of Parliament as an independent.
He was born in Longwood, Saint Helena in 1827 or 1828, and moved to South Africa. He returned to Saint Helena in 1847. There, he married Emily Ann Carew in 1853 or 1854. In 1857, he went back to South Africa, intending to settle in Natal, but locusts had destroyed agricultural prospects. He decided to emigrate to New Zealand instead and the couple and their three children arrived in Lyttelton on the Zealandia on 12 November 1859.[1]
In Lyttelton, Moss supported the Moorhouse tunnel railway project and established himself as a trader. He was instrumental in forming a volunteer company and became captain. With the discovery of gold in Otago, he moved to Dunedin in 1862. He entered various business partnerships, including with Thomas Dick. He became captain of the local rifle volunteers and founded a newspaper, the Otago Daily Mail, which he sold after only a few months.
In Dunedin, he was elected to the Otago Provincial Council in 1863. He was secretary for public works and served as provincial treasurer. He and Dick, who had been elected onto the Provincial Council in 1859,[2] were opponents of Julius Vogel, who also entered the Provincial Council in 1863. When Vogel became leader of the provincial executive in 1866 and then treasurer, Moss resigned the following year.
He represented the Parnell electorate from 1878 to 1890, when he retired.[3] He was a liberal and a supporter of Sir George Grey and provincialism.
In 1889 he published 'Through atolls and islands in the Great South Sea', Sampson Low,Marston, Searle & Rivington, London. In 1890, he was appointed British Resident of the Cook Islands; he served from April 1891 to September 1898.
His son Edward George Britton Moss was the Member of Parliament for from 1902 to 1905.[4]
Moss died in Auckland on 8 July 1904. He was survived by his wife (by two years) and six of his eight children.