1941: Auckland Mayor John Allum

May 28, 2025

By AHNZ

Today in New Zealand history, 28 May, 1941, John Allum became the mayor of Auckland. This portrait (left) has been mothballed for decades in the city archives. They didn’t even know who it was and that it was someone else! Only turned up because the archives were being shifted to the North Shore to (I suppose) make more room for Super City mandarins and their henchmen!

This mayor (1941-53) had a very long term thanks to his popularity. He also seems to owe his success to being “far happier” working with the Labour 1.0 Ministry than his predecessor, Mayor Ernest Davis (1935-41.) Mayor Davis had been a major sponsor of the Labour Party and the employer of Michael Joseph Savage in his brewery and John A. Lee when he needed it. Ref Wiki

Davis’ investment paid off with political results in 1935. He became mayor of Auckland City and Labour became The Government. Yet in Lee’s diary of June 1938 he writes that the new Deputy Mayor, Allum, was muscling in on Davis, pushing his way into the office without welcome. The Mayor was cross about the intrusion and tried to ignore it but didn’t kick Allum out. These observations led Lee to wonder who was whose deputy? It seemed that the political party that Davis had hand-fed was now all grown up and was trying to run him! And if he wouldn’t play along then “his” deputy would. Ref. John Lee (1981)

It was certainly good politics to be very close friends with the Labour Ministry (1935-49) and Allum out-lasted them. He seems to have switched to an affinity with Sydney Holland’s National 1.0 Ministry when it came to power.  He sided with them in the 1951 Waterfront Dispute based on the Melbourne Argus. However this paper must have exaggerated this greatly in saying that Mayor Allum wanted to see the striking workers beaten up! “We don’t want to send them to hospital but just let them go round bruised and bleeding a bit.” Ref. Melbourne Argus (7 May, 1951,) Trove

After being beaten in the 1953 election by John Luxford there was an offer for Allum to enter national politics for the National Party. He didn’t do it but evidently he was indeed now in their camp.

“A surprising discovery was recently made during preparations for moving the council’s archives, civic gifts and council artefacts to a new location on the North Shore (scheduled for next year). A mayoral portrait which had no plaque, label or identifying text, other than the artist’s signature (J C Hill) had been transferred in 2003 from storage in another council building to Auckland City Council Archives. There it had at first been misidentified as Sir Dove-Myer Robinson.”

“…founded the Allum Electrical Company Limited, remaining for several decades as its managing director. Allum served as an Auckland City councillor throughout the
1920s and was returned to office in 1938. He was mayor of Auckland City from 1941 to 1953. Also a foundation member and first chairman of the elected Auckland Transport Board in 1928, Allum served as president of several local and national employers’ organisations, including the Auckland Manufacturers’ Association and the New Zealand Employers’ Federation. An active office-holder in up to 60 organisations, including school boards and cultural societies, Allum must have spent a sizeable portion of his adult life in meetings and surely among other sterling qualities, possessed an uncommonly high boredom threshold.” – Auckland Council Archives (2023)

“Allum turned up while I was with Sir Ernest. The mayor snubbed the deputy. Has Allum been made deputy against Sir Ernest’s will, or is the party trying to run Sir Ernest? Allum seemed far happier with Labour.” – Lee (1981)

Being on good terms with Wellington sure paid off. Allum  was able to do many things in  Auckland City. The energetic “Can Do” guy that took his city from War to the start of the post-war Boom.

The major claim to fame is that, at last, here was a man who could close the deal with the central government to get the Auckland Harbor its big bridge. It was planned for a life expectancy of 50 years which has long since run out. Nobody has been able to even come close to doing what Allum did despite regular election promises these many years. However, if somebody doesn’t step up to the project, and soon, then the Allum fumes we are running on will run right out and it’ll be a return to ferries.

—
Ref. Auckland Council Archives newsletter #24; August 2023

Ref. p80, The John A Lee Diaries 1936-1940. John Lee (1981)

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