New Zealand Challenge - Mayors in May [closed]

Question

Help us find New Zealand's mayors. Are you a New Zealand Project or Kiwi Crew member? Are you a New Zealander or just interested in New Zealand? Our challenge in May is to find or add as many pre-1989 mayors as possible. Mayors in May challenge details are here, but just find or add the profiles for New Zealand mayors and add the New Zealand, Mayors  category. (Some towns already exist and more could easily be created.)

To join, just answer this question with the place you would like to focus on.

Thank you Kylie Fowler for already adding all the mayors of Bluff.

An Update: we have gone from 93 mayor's profiles in the New Zealand, Mayors category to 285. Ka pai!

Answer 1

I'll focus on Motueka.

Comments

All the Motueka mayors are now added and connected with succession boxes, except for David Kennedy as I can’t find any dates or other information. I might check with TDC or the local museum to see if they could help with that.

Answer 2

I'm not sure I can commit to an area, but I will try for any of the Taranaki mayors and throw in a single Nelson one.

Hāwera Mayors up to 1933 done, will add a few since then but without succession boxes unfortunately as I don't have their terms.

Comments

Thank you.

Answer 3

I will do some for the West Coast.

Comments

Great, Clare.

Answer 4

Hi I will focus on Lower Hutt.

Comments

Thanks, Carol. The category has been set up.

Answer 5

I will do a few of the early Wanganui mayors, at least up to when my 2xgreat uncle by marriage was mayor.

Comments

Much appreciated, Margaret.

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I now have the complete list pinned up starting with the  chairmen of the Wanganui Board, proceeding through the Borough and City Mayors, then to the District. Rather a lot of them. My goal is to do the Borough mayors over the next few months. Some I have found already on WikiTree. Will there be different succession boxes for the different titles?

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Thanks, Margaret. From the current discussion on Discord in the category renaming channel, it appears that different titles would have different succession boxes. Check in with Melanie - she’s good at them.

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I have now got profiles (in various stages of completion) for the 17 Mayors of the Borough of Wanganui. I'll work on them gradually and add wives to those that don't already have them.

Answer 6

Going to work on Onehunga (has the first women mayor in the British empire).

Comments

Great! A woman mayor!

Answer 7

I can add a few Mayors of Feilding from my research into settlement of the Manchester Block for the 150th Anniversary coming up in 2024

Comments

Thanks, Janet. would you be able to categorise them as Mayors of Feilding please? The category should be set up for you.

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I've added the bare bones of Mayors of Feilding from 1881-1981, all except one. I can continue to improve the profiles as time allows. Some were already there so I just added the category, and some were abandoned so I adopted them

Answer 8

I've just added Elsmore-108 and  also updated my own descendants profile Mayor of Takapuna  (1914-1921)Blomfield-134.  Will also do some work on a descendant who was Mayor in Motueka.  The profile is already done some time ago. Just need to add the category.

Comments

Mayor of Motueka is the category. I have done the first three and will do the succession boxes eventually.

Answer 9

I'm In, I'll start on the Oamaru Mayors, unfortunately, there is no known list. I've created a Category: Mayors of Oamaru. al linked some that are already on WikiTree.

What I've added 

1. John Campbell Gilchrist JP 1866 to 1867
2. Samuel Gibbs from 1867 to 1874
3. Samuel Edward Shrimski 1874 - 1875
4. George Sumpter JP 1875 - 1876
5. William Jukes Steward 1876 to 1879
6. Samuel Gibbs 16 Jul 1880-1883
7. John Falconer 1883 to 1886
8. William Christie Nov 1886 - May 1888
9. David Dunn 1888 to 1892
10. William Waddell 1891–1895
11. Henry Aitken 1895 - 1899
12. John Marshall Brown JP 1895 - 1906

Comments

Excellent, Campbell. The Press online up until 1990 should help with that.

Answer 10

I'm working on a list of Chairmen of the Wallace County Council from 1877. Close enough to a mayor? 

Comments

Sounds great, Danny. Dog you want a category for that?

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That would be handy thanks Fiona.

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[[Category:Chairman of Wallace County Council]]

Answer 11

I'm going to start with Neville Pickering and see where that takes me. 

Answer 12

Sorry, only just seen this and it's no longer May, as I've been busy with other things, but if someone wants a source of all Blenheim mayors from 1869-1968, I digitised and published online the text of The First Hundred history of the Borough of Blenheim.

The First Hundred - Marlborough Online

The text also includes the names of councillors for each year, and a variety of other local history that may be useful as a source.

The print copy of the book has pictures of all the mayors too, but I need to go back and do more work to get good scans of them, as my initial task was to digitise the text, and this alone was a huge task, done in spare time.

As far as mayors go, I've already previously contributed some biographical details of my great-grandfather, Sir Ernest Andrews, who was mayor of Christchurch.

Comments

Thanks for linking to that great source, Anon. We may run the same challenge next year so you can always do it then. I'll add the link of that wonderful resource to our list of resources.

Answer 13

Sorry. I completely forgot about this challenge. I did plan to do Tim Shadbolt. But that is a no-go.

Tim's father has a profile, but Tim does not.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Shadbolt-596

Also Tim's wikipedia page is stuck on 1 language - English. So he does not qualify as a "Living Notable".  This may have contributed my lack of interest in working on this profile.

So I do apologise for not doing my part.

Ciao.

Comments

No problem, Robynne. There is always next year.