John Rochfort

John Rochfort (21 May 1832 – 8 March 1893) was a New Zealand surveyor and engineer.

Rochfort was born in London, England, in 1832. He emigrated to New Zealand in 1851 with his brother James. He made inland explorations and carried out surveys for the Nelson Provincial Council. On 23 July 1863, he married Mary Elizabeth Hackett at Nelson. His wife died of a lung infection in September of the following year. He remarried on 16 May 1867; his second wife, Amelia Susan Lewis, was the daughter of his surveyor colleague Henry Lewis. They were to have one son and two daughters. Her sister Eleanor was married to the explorer and engineer Arthur Dudley Dobson, who thus became his brother-in-law. Dobson's sister, Mary Dobson, had earlier married the explorer and geologist Julius von Haast.^[1]

Rochfort laid out the town of Greymouth. He surveyed the alignment for the North Island Main Trunk through the country's unknown interior.^[1] Haast named Mount Rochfort, a 1,040 metres (3,410 ft) high peak near Westport, after Rochfort.^[1][2]

Aged 60, Rochfort died in 1893 in Kihikihi from a heart disease. His wife, who was more than a decade younger than him, survived his by nearly 50 years and died in 1942 at Richmond.^[1]

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