DCB/DBC Mobile beta  PRENDERGAST, JAMES LUKE, merchant,
politician, office holder, and jp; b. 7 April 1800 in Harbour
Grace, Nfld, son of James Prendergast; m. there 1 Feb. 1825
Margaret Bransfield, and they had several children; d. there
13 May 1895.  Although he was of humble origin, James Luke
Prendergast had by 1840 established a mercantile business in his
home community and had also become involved in religious and
philanthropic organizations. His political career began in that
year, when he contested a by-election called because of the
death of a member of the House of Assembly for his district,
Conception Bay.  At this time Newfoundland political life was
dominated by bitter religious and ethnic tensions as the Liberal
party, representing Irish Roman Catholics and reformers
generally, sought to take power from the entrenched, mainly
Protestant, Conservative party. Prendergast, a Catholic, ran as
an independent Liberal against official Liberal nominee Edmund
Hanrahan*. Since Conservatives came to Prende