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Story: Premiers and prime ministers

Image-making: Joseph Gordon Coates, 1919

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Image-making: Joseph Gordon Coates, 1919

Tall and handsome, new Reform Party leader Gordon Coates became known as ‘the jazz premier’ after his election win in 1925. As this 1919 studio portrait suggests, it also helped to have a good war record.

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Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: 1/2-024703-G

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Gavin McLean, Premiers and prime ministers – Party leadership, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/33189/image-making-joseph-gordon-coates-1919 (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Gavin McLean, published 7 May 2012, updated 1 December 2016.