From the early days of European settlement, attempts have been made to meet social welfare problems through services established by the churches or non-denominational community organisations. The Otago Benevolent Society, founded in 1862, was an early example of the latter. In spite of official encouragement and some financial assistance from the State, most of the nineteenth century attempts were failures, and New Zealand's oldest voluntary welfare organisations date usually from the early years of the twentieth century as it was only then that economic standards had risen to the point where the public could afford to support such activities from private contributions.

Traditionally the voluntary organisations have been concerned chiefly with the provision of institutions for the care of children and the aged. This has been true of the church social services as well as of more specialist organisations such as the National Foundation for the Blind and the Crippled Children Society. More recently the welfare associations operated by the various churches have shown an increasing tendency to concern themselves with the foster home placement of deprived children and a wider range of casework services. The Anglican Diocesan Social Service Council in Christchurch has been a notable leader in this field. This same trend is illustrated by the tendency of one of New Zealand's oldest voluntary agencies, the Society for the Protection of Home and Family (formerly the Society for the Protection of Women and Children, founded in 1898), to change from an emphasis on the provision of legal and financial assistance to women to the provision of counselling and casework services to families as a whole.

A striking feature of the present situation is the increasing number of organisations concerned with the maintenance and strengthening of existing families and with the provision of services for non-delinquent children and adults, covering a whole range of activities such as the education of pre-school children, family planning, assistance to intellectually and physically handicapped children and their families, the treatment and support of alcoholics and their families, marriage counselling and education for marriage. Many of these services receive subsidies, assistance in the provision of training courses, and other forms of aid from the State. They are staffed very largely by part time, often unpaid, workers.

Birthright (New Zealand) Inc.

In 1956 the first Birthright Society was formed at Hastings, and similar societies followed in other centres. Birthright advises and gives limited financial assistance to children and mothers in cases where there is no father. Birthright works closely with the State Advances Corporation and the Social Security Department, but is dependent upon the voluntary services of citizens. There are Birthright Societies in the main New Zealand centres.

Hohepa Homes and Schools

The New Zealand Trust Board for Home-Schools for Curative Education was formed on 4 May 1956 to establish suitable institutions for the curative education of intellectually handicapped persons according to principles of Rudolf Steiner. By 1965 there were three Hohepa Home-Schools – all in the Napier district – while a fourth is to be opened in Christ-church later in the year.

Intellectually Handicapped Children's Society

The Intellectually Handicapped Children's Society was formed at Wellington on 25 October 1949, when it was called the Intellectually Handicapped Children's Parents' Association. Its functions were to provide services for the care and training of the intellectually handicapped. Prior to this the only groups interested in these were the small After-Care Associations. The society soon drew the Government's attention to its work and now receives a small subsidy. It collaborates with the Department of Health and runs hostels, opportunity workshops, day-care centres, and schools where children can get special training. The society now has branches throughout New Zealand.

New Zealand Prisoners' Aid Society

There are 14 local societies in this organisation whose chief functions are visiting prisoners and providing help for their wives and families. The society maintains close cooperation with the Department of Justice, from which it receives grants; further finance is received from lotteries. By these means, together with donations, the society is able to employ four full-time officers. The work, however, is mainly voluntary and there are over 200 voluntary workers throughout the country. Future plans provide for a comprehensive scheme of assistance in the resettlement of prisoners following their release, and, in furtherance of this work, the setting up of post-release hostels.

Wellington After-Care Association, Inc.

This association, which is typical of many now functioning throughout the country, was established in 1928 to provide care for older mentally retarded children, many of whom have already passed through special classes. It is purely a voluntary organisation which provides an occupational centre and a sheltered workshop where boys and girls are trained in hand-crafts. Recreation and training in social adjustment are important features of the activities. It is financed by grants from trust funds, public donations, and various money-raising efforts.

From the early days of the colony, neglected and delinquent children have constituted a problem for the authorities, though over the years, with increasing standards of living and health, the proportion of children whose difficulties arise chiefly from economic circumstances or the death of parents has become very small. Major legislation in this field dates from the Neglected and Criminal Children Act 1867. This Act established the system of industrial schools which dominated the scene until the end of the century. These schools were residential institutions intended for the care and education of neglected children but to some degree were used also, and unsuitably, as orphanages and reformatories. They were established chiefly by the various provincial governments, but also in a few cases by voluntary organisations. The Central Government's administrative responsibilities were handled at first by the Department of Justice, but in 1880 these responsibilities were taken over by the Department of Education which initiated a more active and enlightened policy. The Industrial Schools Act 1882 permitted the boarding out of children who were in the care of such schools, and by 1895, 81 per cent of children from the schools directly controlled by the Department were in foster homes.

This emphasis on foster homes rather than institutions has remained a feature of the child welfare services to the present day and associated with it has been an encouragement of adoption, New Zealand being the first British country to make statutory provision for the adoption of children (Adoption of Children Act 1881). Steady developments in the field of child welfare found expression in the Child Welfare Act 1925, under which a special branch of the Department of Education, now known as the Child Welfare Division was established. Children's Courts were established under the same Act.

As at present constituted, the Child Welfare Division controls 29 district offices with a staff of 259 field officers, and 46 institutions providing long-and short-term care for various types of handicapped, deprived, and delinquent children. The Division's responsibilities include the guardianship of children committed by the Courts to the care of the State, the supervision of delinquent children where this is ordered by the Courts, the investigation of all complaints laid with respect to the treatment of children, reporting on all applications for adoption, the provision of casework services for parents requesting such assistance, reporting on all cases of illegitimate births, and the inspection and licensing of all institutions, foster homes, and nurseries used for the care of young children. The Division is also able to supply financial assistance to needy families with young children who do not qualify for social security benefits.

The Old Age Pensions Act 1898 established the basis of the present system, and was the only strictly “welfare” measure of any lasting importance in the first period of legislative activity in the nineties. It must, however, be viewed in the context of a series of measures, concerned with conditions of work and the regulation of wages, and the reform of the system of land tenure, all of which involved very directly the economic welfare of the mass of the population.

During the following 30 years the pension system was extended to include widows (1911), Maori War veterans (1912), miners (1915), and the blind (1924), while the size of the pensions was steadily increased and conditions of payment were made less stringent, though always subject to a means test. In 1926 family allowances were introduced at the rate of 2s. per week for each child in excess of two, again subject to means test. All these pensions and allowances were non-contributory.

The second great advance came with the passing of the Social Security Act 1938. This Act extended and increased the existing pensions, but it also introduced important innovations. It was intended to provide subsistence to all citizens who, in the face of economic difficulties arising from exceptional or unavoidable circumstances such as unemployment or old age, could not adequately maintain themselves or their dependants. The Act also provided the economic basis of a comprehensive health service. In principle, it was a contributory scheme, with a contribution levied on all income, but with no necessary relation between an individual's contribution and the benefits he received – the scheme therefore involved a considerable redistribution of income. The principle of the means test was abandoned with respect to superannuation benefits and medical benefits and, to emphasise the contributory nature of the scheme, the term “benefit” was substituted for the terms “pension” and “allowance”.

Although a distinction is made between “cash benefits” and “health benefits”, and although they are administered separately by the Social Security and Health Departments respectively, in fact both are entirely economic in nature. The introduction of health benefits did not include the establishment of new, or the expansion of old services, but met all or part of the cost to the user of already existing services.

Since the scheme came into operation the benefits have been steadily increased. As at 31 March 1965 cash benefits available were as follows, approximate weekly rate being given in brackets: Superannuation (£5); age, widows', invalids', and miners' (payable to sufferers from pneumo-coniosis) (£5); orphans' (2 10s. per child); family (15s. per child); sickness, and unemployment (£5). In the case of most benefits, additional sums are payable in respect of dependent wives (and in the case of widows, dependent children), while supplementary and emergency benefits may be paid in appropriate circumstances. The superannuation, family, and miners' benefits are not subject to means test. No person may receive a superannuation benefit in addition to any other cash benefit, except a family benefit, but, apart from this, all persons meeting certain residential requirements are entitled to superannuation benefit on reaching the age of 65. Age benefits (which are subject to means test) are payable usually from age 60. Benefits are financed chiefly from a charge of 1s. 6d. in the pound levied on all income. At 31 March 1965 the total number of persons (including dependent wives and children) in respect of whom social security benefits were payable, was 1,176,100, or approximately 45 per cent of the total population.

Since 1959 it has been possible, under certain circumstances, for persons in receipt of family benefit to capitalise this benefit in order to assist in the purchase of a house, to add to or alter a house, or to repay a mortgage on a house.

In 1958 the Social Security Department began the development of a Welfare Section, staffed by trained social workers, whose primary function is to provide a personal counselling and casework service to assist beneficiaries and others with personal problems over and above the economic problems which the benefits are intended to meet.

New Zealand has long enjoyed a widespread reputation for advanced, and even adventurous, social welfare legislation. This reputation is by no means entirely undeserved, but actual performance has been more varied than the reputation might suggest.

During the first half-century of European settlement (1840–90), a small population of British origin, an underdeveloped economy, and pioneering conditions, inevitably meant a generally low standard of living with little capital accumulation. Typical of the situation were frequent instances of severe hardship which usually affected relatively small numbers of people, considerable reliance on self-help and informal community support for those in need, and an attempt to meet the more intractable welfare problems by a reliance on the traditional British remedies of private charity and a locally administered Poor Law. The attempt to use traditional methods in a new setting failed, the Hospitals and Charitable Institutions Act 1885 being the last major effort in this direction. The years 1890–1960 saw the development of a very different system of welfare services.

It is a striking fact that the main parts of the present system were evolved during two brief bursts of legislative activity, the first in the closing years of the nineteenth century; the second in the period immediately prior to the Second World War. Each of these bursts of activity followed a period of unusually severe economic depression; each was the work of a government recently come to power; and each was followed by a long period of unspectacular, piecemeal, but sometimes very important, developments and adjustments. Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that the welfare services established in the two main legislative periods have been concerned largely with, first, the overcoming of the consequences of poverty; second, preventing future poverty; and, third, the progressive removal of economic impediments to the general social welfare of families and individuals. It is also not surprising, though unfortunate, that the very strength and importance of these concerns should have resulted in a comparative neglect of many of the less tangible, but no less important, impediments to welfare.

(1823–91).

Sheepowner, statesman, and British colonial Governor.

A new biography of Weld, Frederick Aloysius appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Frederick Aloysius Weld was the third son of Humphrey Weld and Maria Christina, daughter of Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, and was born at Chideock, Dorset, on 9 May 1823. Both his parents were descended from old Roman Catholic landowning families. He was educated at the Jesuit College of Stonyhurst, founded by his grandfather, and at the University of Fribourg, in Switzerland. He was attracted to the Army, but, he wrote in later life, “the Army was a very expensive profession, and men for the most part entered it as a means of leading a pleasant life and rising by purchase to high positions rather than for any other reason”. Accordingly, on leaving the University in 1843, he decided to follow the example of some of his friends and relatives and emigrate to New Zealand. He embarked on 27 November with “a modest sum of golden sovereigns in a bag”, a New Zealand Company land order for 100 acres, and another for a town lot in Wellington, and, after touching at New Plymouth, reached his destination on 23 April 1844. Nine days after arrival he was on his way with a flock of sheep to the Wairarapa, having joined his cousin, Charles Clifford, and two friends in taking up a sheep run on land leased from some Maori chiefs. The station site at Wharekaka, on Palliser Bay, proved unhealthy and in 1847 Weld and Clifford transferred their headquarters across Cook Strait to Flaxbourne, south of the Wairau Plains, partly for reasons of health and partly because there was more room for the expansion of their flocks. Towards the end of 1850 Weld and Clifford applied for and prospected the Stonyhurst run in North Canterbury. By 1851 Weld could afford to visit England, where he published Hints to Intending Sheep Farmers in New Zealand, a pamphlet which ran to three editions.

Weld had already interested himself in politics. He declined early in 1849 an offer by Sir George Grey of a seat on the nominated Legislative Council, was active in the Settlers' Constitutional Association in Wellington, and, whilst in England, took part in unofficial discussions about a self-governing constitution for New Zealand at the house of Sir C. Adderley, M.P. Soon after Weld's return to New Zealand in December 1852, Sir George Grey proclaimed the new Constitution Act. Weld was elected to the House of Representatives for Wairau in 1853 and, at the first session of the General Assembly in 1854, was one of the unofficial Executive Councillors through whom the Assembly attempted to smooth the transition from representative to responsible government. He resigned with his colleagues, J. E. FitzGerald, H. Sewell, and T. H. Bartley, on 2 August. Before the Assembly met for its second session a year later Weld had resigned his seat on 13 June 1855. Later in that year he chartered a small vessel to see the great volcano of Mauna Loa, Hawaii, in eruption, and a month later set out on another visit to England, from which he returned in January 1857. On 21 May 1858 he was again elected to the House of Representatives for Wairau and thus took part in the passage of the New Provinces Act of 1858 under which Marlborough became a separate province in October 1859. In the autumn of 1858, however, Weld left on a third visit to England, where on 10 March 1859 he married a distant cousin, Filumena de Lisle Phillipps. A severe attack of typhoid fever delayed his return to New Zealand until January 1860.

This time Weld had not resigned his seat in the House and on 28 July he joined the Stafford Ministry. At first he held no portfolio, but on 10 November he succeeded C. W. Richmond as Minister of Native Affairs. As such he accompanied Governor Gore Browne to Te Arei pa early in 1861 in an attempt, only partially successful, to negotiate a peace after the Taranaki War. The Stafford Ministry resigned in July 1861 after being defeated in the newly elected House, in which Weld sat for Cheviot. With the return of Sir George Grey as Governor at the end of the year, there began a confused period in which the House tried to evade the responsibility for the management of Maori affairs which both the Governor and the Imperial Government wished it to assume. In 1863 the Domett Ministry elaborated a scheme of military settlement on lands to be confiscated from the Maoris in the Waikato, to which the war had spread. A loan of £3,000,000 was to be raised in London to finance the war and the settlement scheme. But the Imperial Government refused to sanction wholesale confiscation and the unfavourable state of the money market made it impossible to raise the loan. Moreover, hopes of a speedy end of the war were fading. There was strong support, especially in Otago, for the separation of the islands in order to free the South from the burden of the Maori problem, which it did not understand. But at a meeting in Christchurch in September 1864 Weld advocated an entire change of policy. In his view the colony, being now responsible for the conduct of Maori affairs, should rely for the settlement of the Maori difficulties upon its own resources. This came to be known as the “self-reliant” policy. At the end of September the quarrels of the Whitaker – Fox Ministry with Sir George Grey (who was also at odds with the officer commanding the troops, General Sir Duncan Cameron) led to the resignation of the Ministry. The Assembly was summoned for November, and on Weld's arrival in Auckland the Governor appealed to him “to assist him in saving the country under overwhelming difficulties”. Weld accepted the commission to form a Ministry, but on condition that “the system of double government by Governor and ministers” was ended. The Imperial Government was to be requested to withdraw its troops and “to issue such instructions to the Governor as may enable him to be guided entirely by the recommendations of his constitutional advisers, excepting only upon such matters as may directly concern imperial interests and the prerogative of the Crown”. Enough land should be confiscated to fulfil the colony's engagements to the military settlers. Immediate effect should be given to the decision of the 1863 Assembly to remove the seat of government to Cook Strait.

Weld formed a strong Ministry with W. Fitzherbert as Colonial Treasurer, Sewell as Attorney-General, J. L. C. Richardson as Postmaster-General, and H. A. Atkinson as Minister of Colonial Defence. Later W. B. D. Mantell and, after his resignation, FitzGerald, joined it as Minister of Native Affairs. Hopes of making the war pay were abandoned, but the Waikato was confiscated, subject to claims of loyal Maoris and rebels at once submitting, and the military settlement scheme was handed over to the Province of Auckland to administer, the General Government supplying the funds. The seat of government was removed to Wellington in January 1865. In the session of 1865 a Native Lands Act was passed and a Land Court set up, F. D. Fenton being appointed Chief Judge. An Act was passed confirming a contract for a mail service to Panama.

But although Weld commanded general confidence and Fitzherbert showed marked ability in restoring the finances, Auckland bitterly resented the transfer of the seat of government and disbelieved in the self-reliant policy. Moreover, it was difficult to operate this with thousands of Imperial troops still in the country. Weld's health was deteriorating and it was thought that he left too much to Sewell and Fitzherbert, who were distrusted. When Fitzherbert proposed in his budget of 1865 to remodel the financial relations of the General Government with the provinces, so many Otago members joined the Auckland members in opposition that the Ministry was saved from defeat only by the Speaker's casting vote. Thereupon Weld resigned, on 10 October 1865, recommending the Governor to send for Stafford. He did not stand at the general election of 1866 and, in May 1867, left for England.

There were some who called for his return in the renewed Maori War crisis of 1868 but it was ruled out when in March 1869 he accepted Lord Granville's offer to be Governor of Western Australia. He arrived in September to find the colony suffering from a very bad season and general trade depression, accentuated by the recent ending of convict transportation and the consequent withdrawal of Imperial subsidies. Coming from New Zealand with its vigorous political life, Weld gave fresh impetus to the movement for representative institutions and, in 1870, he carried through the nominee Legislative Council a Bill remodelling it to provide for 12 elected and six nominated members. His Government saw the beginning of railways, the institution of a regular coastal steam service, and the commencement of an overland telegraph to South Australia. He also passed an Elementary Education Act and a Municipalities Act. He gave his support to a proposal for responsible government, but the Imperial Government was unwilling to grant it to a colony numbering only 26,000 people in so vast a territory. He also took an active interest in the aboriginal population. Early in 1874 Weld paid a brief visit to New Zealand to discuss business with his partner Clifford.

In January 1875 Weld left Western Australia for Tasmania, of which he had been appointed Governor. The system of responsible government gave him less to do than in Western Australia. The colony was making progress, thanks to discoveries of tin and gold, but its politics were riddled with faction. Weld's chief interest appears to have been in defence and the volunteer movement, notably in the Near Eastern crisis of 1877–78.

In 1880 Weld was appointed Governor of the Straits Settlements. He took particular interest in the Malay States, with some of which treaties providing for the appointment of British Residents had recently been signed. He travelled about the country making the acquaintance of their rulers. His term of office was marked by the signature of a new treaty with Johore, in 1885. Just before his departure in 1887 a treaty with the Sultan of Pahang, providing for his acceptance of a British Agent, was signed. Weld's policies also contributed to the later conclusion of a treaty with the nine States of Negri Sembilan. In 1887 Weld undertook a mission to Borneo to resolve difficulties that had arisen between the Sultan of Brunei, Rajah Brooke of Sarawak, and the British North Borneo Company.

Weld, who had been made K.C.M.G. in 1880 and was promoted G.C.M.G. in 1885, spent his declining years as a country gentleman in Chideock Manor, England, which he had inherited from his elder brother. He took an interest in the question of Imperial federation, to which he had looked forward when Governor of Tasmania. In 1891 he visited the Malay States on behalf of the Pahang Exploration and Development Co., of which he was a director. He was taken ill there and, after rallying sufficiently to return home, died at Chideock on 20 July. Weld was survived by his wife and his 12 children.

Weld, who was very tall, slim, and erect, with a handsome, whiskered face, was a man of gracious manner and noble character. He took a statesman's rather than an administrator's view of questions. Though he had both ability and energy, he was too trustful to be a good judge of men. But his term of office as Premier, though short, was crucial. His bold acceptance of responsibility for Maori affairs and self-defence – even though not fully effective till 1870 – gave a moral lead to the colony and vindicated the unity of New Zealand against the separationists. He ranks as one of the founders of New Zealand nationality.

by William Parker Morrell, M.A.(N.Z.), D.PHIL.(OXON.), Professorial Fellow, History and Political Science Department, University of Otago.

• Life of Sir Frèderick Weld, Lovat, A. (1914)
• Australia's Western Third, Crowley, F. K. (1960)
• British Malaya, Swettenham, F. (1948).

New Zealand is noted for the number of its flightless or near flightless land birds, and of these the one most often seen is the weka. There is one very variable species, Gallirallus australis, which is divided into four subspecies – one in the North Island, two in the South, and one in Stewart Island.

North Island wekas, once widespread, are now very much reduced both in range and in numbers and are common only in the East Cape district. They also occur sporadically in Northland. In the South Island the western weka of the forests and alpine grasslands of the main mountain chain from Marlborough and Nelson to Fiordland is now only locally abundant. The eastern subspecies, once common over much of the native grasslands from Marlborough to Otago, is almost certainly extinct in its original range. Luckily, some which were transferred to the Chathams in 1905 have become abundant there and an attempt has recently been made to re-establish the species in Canterbury. The result of this experiment is not yet known. A fourth subspecies occurs in fair numbers on Stewart Island and has been introduced to some of its off-shore islets and to Solander and Macquarie Islands.

In those parts where wekas are still relatively common, their furtive curiosity makes them a familiar sight around houses or camps as they patrol in search of edible scraps or, in fact, of anything unfamiliar and transportable. Wekas also feed on berries, insects, worms, lizards, crustaceans, eggs, and young of birds – even mice, rats, rabbits, and, occasionally, stoats.

Their predominant colour is rich brown mottled with black; in some areas the whole plumage is almost black. The reddish-brown bill, about 2 in. long and stout and pointed, is a formidable weapon. The tail is pointed too and is almost constantly being flicked – a sign of unease and a characteristic feature of the behaviour of the rail family, to which wekas belong. Both sexes are alike, the male being slightly larger than the female. Nests are made on the ground under cover of thick vegetation, and consist of grass or similar material made into a bowl in which about four buff eggs blotched with brown and mauve are laid. Both sexes incubate. The size of a weka is approximately equal to that of a domestic hen.

The common contact call is a loud, reedy cooeét cooet cooet, given with a rising inflection. During the breeding season a rapid drumming note seems to be connected with territorial behaviour.

by Gordon Roy Williams, B.SC.(HONS.)(SYDNEY), Lecturer in Agricultural Zoology, Lincoln Agricultural College.

(1893–1961).

Soldier, Chief of Staff of the New Zealand Army.

William Weir was born on 6 July 1893 in the Heathcote Valley, near Christchurch. His father was James Weir, from County Antrim, Ireland, a fireman, and his mother was Jessie, née McDonald, of Christchurch. From the time young Weir commenced his secondary education at Christchurch West District High School, his parents were left in no doubt as to his ambitions. He was determined to become a professional soldier. To this end he went at the age of 18 as a foundation student to the Royal Military College at Duntroon. He had not finished the full programme of preparation for his career that he had mapped out for himself when the First World War broke out. With typical determination and impatience he set about transferring from the parade ground of Duntroon to the overseas forces, and he was successful to the extent that he was in time to take part in the fighting on Gallipoli, where he was wounded. On his return to New Zealand he was posted to the Permanent Force, and in the years that followed the war he showed the extent of his complete absorption in the profession of soldiering. In 1937, with the rank of colonel, he led the New Zealand Contingent at the coronation of King George VI, and on his return was appointed aide-de-camp to the Governor-General. In 1940 he was appointed to the command of the Northern Military District with the rank of brigadier. He then went to the Central Military District in Wellington, and two years later, as an acting major-general, he assumed command of the 4th New Zealand Division. He served with the 2nd New Zealand Division in the Middle East and Mediterranean theatres from 1942 to 1944, and was mentioned in dispatches. He received the appointment of aide-de-camp to the King in 1945, and in the same year became Quartermaster-General of the New Zealand Forces. When he became Chief of the General Staff in 1946 his rank of major-general was made substantive. He retired in 1949, and died at his home in Cambridge on 11 July 1961. He was knighted in 1948, and was awarded the C.B.E. in 1942 and the C.B. in 1946.

General Weir was a notable example of the dedicated soldier. Soldiering was his whole existence, and it can be said of him that he served his country as effectively in peace as in wartime. He was an able administrator and his staff work in the years before the Second World War contributed substantially to the maintenance of standards in the New Zealand forces at a time when Government and public alike were inclined to regard the defence forces as an expensive luxury that could be reduced to a minimum. He had the faculty not only of training and developing his officers, but also of attracting and retaining their confidence.

by Ronald Jones, Journalist and Script Writer, New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, Wellington.

• Dominion, 12 Jul 1961 (Obit)
• Evening Post, 12 Jul 1961 (Obit).

(1904– ).

Ambassador to Thailand.

A new biography of Weir, Stephen Cyril Ettrick appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Stephen Cyril Ettrick Weir was born at Dunedin on 5 October 1904 and was educated at Otago Boys' High School. Going to England in the early 1920s he joined the Imperial Army, rising to command of the Royal Artillery in 1927, but returned to New Zealand in 1929. In the Second World War he commanded the New Zealand 25th Battery in 1939 and 6th Field Regiment in 1941–42. From 1944 to 1946 he was G.O.C. 46th British Infantry Division. After the war he was in command of Southern Military District till 1949, at the War Office in 1951, and back in New Zealand as Quartermaster-General, 1952–55. He became Chief of the General Staff and G.O.C. New Zealand Division, 1955–60, and in 1960 was Military Adviser to the New Zealand Government. In 1961 he was appointed New Zealand High Commissioner (now Ambassador) to Thailand and New Zealand Representative to SEATO. He was made a C.B. in 1945 and knighted in 1960.

(1888–1965).

Artist.

A new biography of Weeks, John appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

John Weeks was born in Devonshire, England, on 8 June 1888 and studied art at the Royal Scottish Academy, the Academy of Andre L'Hote, Paris, the Edinburgh College of Art, and in Rome and Florence. During the First World War he served in France. In 1925 he won the painting prize at the Royal Scottish Academy. He was instructor in drawing and painting at Elam School of Art, Auckland, from 1930 to 1949, when Elam became a university school, and thenceforth was senior lecturer in painting until his retirement in 1953. Through teaching and example, Weeks has fostered an appreciation of the principles of Post Impressionism in this country. He was awarded the Bledisloe Medal for landscape painting in 1935. A major retrospective exhibition of his work was staged by the Auckland City Art Gallery in 1955 and this was shown throughout New Zealand. Weeks is represented in all major galleries in New Zealand. He was awarded the O.B.E. in 1958. He died alone in his studio at Auckland c. 12 September 1965.

During his formative years Weeks travelled and worked in France, Morocco, Tunisia, and Italy where he gained a mature understanding of the principles of Post Impressionism. On his return to New Zealand he did much to foster the appreciation of sound pictorial design and expressive colour. He was an ardent and purposeful experimenter and in his studio at Northcote, Auckland, he sometimes anticipated methods and trends that were to flourish in Europe and in the United States of America years later. The experiments were never intended for exhibition.

by Stewart Bell Maclennan, A.R.C.A.(LOND.), Director, National Art Gallery, Wellington.

• Auckland Star, 17 Sep 1965 (Obit).

(1804–94).

Surgeon-superintendent to the Plymouth Company and diarist.

Weekes was born at Barnstaple, Devonshire, in 1804, and took up medicine, gaining his M.R.C.S. and, in 1836, a silver medal for physiology. He was attacked by “emigration fever” in 1840 and signed as surgeon-superintendent on the Plymouth Company's William Bryan, in which he assumed the dual roles of surgeon and spiritual adviser. The demand for his professional services was light in healthy Taranaki, so he turned his hand to other things and, in November 1841, compiled the first reliable meteorological reports from the new colony. He shared the colonists' dissatisfaction in the Company's arrangements for their reception, and when he obtained his 50-acre land grant in Fitzroy, he subdivided and sold it at a handsome profit, thus becoming the first Taranaki land speculator. Weekes left New Plymouth in February 1842, and returned to England, via Valparaiso and Cape Horn. He practised medicine at Barnstaple, and contributed a notable article on Taranaki ironsands to the New Zealand Journal (10 April 1843). He brought his newly married wife to Auckland in 1845, where they began sheep farming on Puketutu Island, but in 1849, disgusted by Sir George Grey's “destructive” land policy, he sold up and went to California, where he combined medicine with gold digging. He returned to England in 1854 but again visited New Zealand, where he served with the Auckland Militia during the Maori Wars. Weekes left New Zealand finally to settle in the British colony at Barcelona, but returned to England in 1889, where he remained until his death in 1894.

Weekes played an important mediating part in the infant Taranaki settlement, where his unfailing good humour did much to ease the tensions between Company and colonists. But his greatest service lay in the voluminous diary, in which he recorded his impressions of the birth pangs of a famous settlement.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• History of Taranaki, Wells, B. (1878)
• Pioneer Medical Men in Taranaki (1834–1880), Skinner, W. H. (1933)
• Plymouth to New Plymouth, Wood, R. G. (1959)