1893: Richard Seddon assumes Premiership of New Zealand.
April 30, 2019
By AHNZ
1 May, 1893: Richard Seddon assumes Premiership (PM) of New Zealand.
The energetic, immense, beefy dynamo that was New Zealand’s answer to Henry VIII. ‘King Dick’ had the Working Class brand all figured out, an old West Coast public bar proprietor with a Lancashire accent.
At first, his leadership was accepted on the grounds of minding the store after his predecessor’s death. Having secured that, Seddon’s new argument was that ‘leadership disputes were risky so let’s just stick with me!’ So it was until his death in 1906. What historian Chris Troter calls the Liberals’ Act 2…
“Seddon’s elevation to the leadership of the Liberal Party began the second of what turned out to be the Liberal government’s three-act play. And if the mutually supportive progressivism of Ballance and Pember Reeves had been the key relationship in act one, it was the tempestuous relationship between Dick Seddon and Jock McKenzie…that would dominate the action in act two.”- Trotter (2007)
Quite a few of our Political Staff die in office. Seddon is remembered by his prominent statue out front of Parliament and the small, earthquake-prone, Marlborough town. Also, by a suburb of Melbourne which I discovered first hand by stumbling upon Seddon train station to my great astonishment at the time.
Nothing special, this train station. Basic build of nuggetty red bricks just like the others along the same line. I remember wondering if they were partly made of depleted uranium and if it was bombarding me with gamma rays. Seddon was, after all, the Hulk of his times.
—
Image ref. Hawkins, F. G; State Library of Victoria (dated as 1906 but it certainly was not)
Image ref. Seddon station; AHNZ files c.2005
Update 2023: Quote from No Left Turn, Chris Trotter (2007)
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