(1815–94).

Philanthropist. Founder of the Dilworth School, Auckland.

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

Dilworth was an Ulsterman, born at Dungannon, County Tyrone, on 15 August 1815. He was educated at the Royal School there, under the noted Dr Darley, later Bishop of Kilmore. After working in an Irish bank, he emigrated to New South Wales at 24 and obtained a job in the post office at Parramatta. His aim had been to settle on the land but, not liking the climate or prospects, he left in 1841 for the new town of Auckland, where he took temporary employment with the New Zealand Banking Co. After looking at land in the Bay of Plenty, Dilworth apparently decided not to lose touch with town life. He bought a suburban farm at Remuera near Graham's Hill (now Mount Hobson), and lived there for the rest of his life. During the northern war of 1845 he joined a member of the missionary Williams' family at the Bay of Islands in a contract for supplying meat to the troops. In course of time he increased his holding at Remuera, and made successful investments in other city and suburban property. He was one of the founders of the Auckland Savings Bank and was elected in 1853 to the Provincial Council, in which he sat for seven years. After the Maori Wars he was associated with the Thames Land Co. He was an early member of the Church of England Diocesan Trust Board and the Auckland University College Council.

Towards the end of his life Dilworth collaborated with a fellow Ulsterman, the Rev. George Mac-Murray, later Archdeacon of Auckland, in a plan to found a New Zealand “Christ's Hospital”. By his will, after providing for his widow, he directed that the whole of his large landed estate, estimated to be worth £100,000, should be vested in six trustees for the creation of a “Dilworth Ulster Institute”. This was to be “for the maintenance, education and training” of boys who were destitute orphans or children of parents in straitened circumstances and of good character and any race, residing in the province of Ulster or the province of Auckland.

Having no children of his own, Dilworth was attracted by the idea of helping underprivileged boys to become, as his will expressed it, “good and useful members of society”. He also wished to show affection for his native Ulster in a practical way. Unfortunately, the prospect of sending their boys to New Zealand at a tender age did not, in the outcome, appeal to Ulster parents and guardians. The plan had therefore to be set aside after a dozen lads had been received. The Dilworth School, as it was later called, opened in 1906 with 12 pupils. In 1964 it had a primary and secondary roll of 167, with prospects of further growth. The trustees take complete responsibility for a boy's needs from the age of nine until he is established in a career, and may send him on to a university if they consider that he shows promise.

Dilworth combined shrewd financial sense with much public spirit. He had a lifelong attachment to the Anglican Church and associated his school with it. Politics and leadership did not interest him; he preferred a minor role in civic activities while doing good in the background. He died at Auckland on 23 December 1894.

by Alfred Fearon Grace, Journalist, Auckland.

• New Zealand Herald, 24 Dec 1894 (Obit); 27 Dec 1894 (Will).

(1811–55).

Naturalist, writer, and professor of geology.

A new biography of Dieffenbach, Johann Karl Ernst appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Ernst Dieffenbach had a brief but important stay in New Zealand during the formative years of the country. He was born in 1811 at Giessen, Germany, the son of a Lutheran clergyman-professor. He studied medicine at Giessen and Zurich and graduated M.D. in 1835. Accused by the Austrian Government of fomenting trouble, he was compelled to flee to Switzerland, and then to take refuge in London where he eked out a precarious living by teaching German and contributing to medical and scientific journals. In 1839 he sailed to New Zealand in the Tory as surgeon and naturalist for the New Zealand Company. In the course of surveying the country for the Company, Dieffenbach made extensive journeys into the interior of the North Island, exploring Tongariro, Taupo, Waikato, and Whaingaroa, and he made the first successful climb of Mount Egmont. He also visited the Chatham Islands.

As well as preparing numerous reports to the New Zealand Company, he sent collections of plants, animals, and rocks, and after his work for the Company was completed, offered to make a scientific exploration of New Zealand for the Government. But Governor Gipps could not even sanction the travelling expenses and in October 1841 Dieffenbach had to return to England, where he published his report on the Chatham Islands in the New Zealand Journal. His book, Travel in New Zealand, appeared in 1843. Two years later he contributed a report on the geology of the country to the British Association.

Dieffenbach's books are written in a style acceptable to the modern reader; clear, and without those affectations so common to the period, and marked by racy sentences. His observations were acute—in the realm of natural history he was prepared to record rather than to theorise. Nor was he afraid to criticise certain aspects of the colonisation of New Zealand. He attacked the speculative buying of town properties which forced up prices, and he greatly admired the Maori in comparison with other native races and feared for their future. He frankly assessed the disadvantages, as well as the possibilities, of New Zealand as a field for colonisation, in a manner that might not have endeared him to the New Zealand Company.

Attempts to return to New Zealand were unsuccessful. After the revolution of 1848 he taught at Giessen, where he was later appointed supernumerary professor of geology. He died at Giessen in October 1855.

by John Bruce Waterhouse, M.SC.(N.Z.), PH.D. (CANTAB.), New Zealand Geological Survey, Lower Hutt.

• Great Britain Official Papers, 1842/569
• Ausland,1874, No. 4, “Ernst Dieffenbach, der Erforscher Neu-Seelands”
• Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Vol. 5.

(1823–1900).

Superintendent of Otago.

Thomas Dick was born on 13 August 1823 at Edinburgh, the son of Thomas Dick, a merchant, and of Marjory, née Sherriff. Although his parents moved to London when he was a child, he was sent to Edinburgh for his education. In 1838 he entered the office of John Roberts, a London, merchant, where he remained until 1850 when he joined Messrs. James Morrison and Co., of Fenchurch Street, London. He spent the next seven years as the firm's representative at St. Helena. In 1857 he was transferred to Dunedin, where he soon established himself as an auctioneer. After 1861, when the goldfields were proclaimed, he expanded this business into a general mercantile agency. Within a year of his arrival in the colony Dick entered public life. On 12 February 1859 he was elected to the Provincial Council, and joined the executive of W. H. Reynolds in the following November. In 1862 he carried a want of confidence motion against the Cutten—Walker administration and took office as Provincial Secretary. On 4 August 1865 he succeeded Richardson as Superintendent and held office until 10 January 1867, when he was defeated by the ebullient Macandrew. Besides his provincial duties, Dick served in the House of Representatives on four occasions, representing Dunedin City (1860–63), Port Chalmers (1866–67), Dunedin City (1879–81), and Dunedin West (1881–84). He held the Colonial Secretary's, Education, and Justice portfolios under Hall (1882–83), adding to these the Post and Telegraph portfolios under Whitaker (1882–83). He was again Colonial Secretary and Minister of Education under Atkinson (1883–84). He stood unsuccessfully in 1884 and 1887, after which he declined a call to the Legislative Council and retired from political life.

Throughout his life Dick was deeply interested in religious questions and in welfare work among the poor. As a young man he had been associated with the Stepney (London) Ragged Schools and taught Sunday schools in the East End of London. While he was at St. Helena he joined the Baptist Church; however, because there was no Baptist organisation in Dunedin at the time of his arrival there, Dick became a pillar of the Free Church. He assisted Dr Burns by teaching at the First Church Sunday School, acted as one of the original trustees of Knox Church, and often helped Dr Stuart to distribute tracts among the gold miners. In 1863, when the Hanover Street Baptist Church was founded, Dick became one of the trustees. He helped to form the Otago Bible Society in 1864 and was a foundation vice-president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (1882). In his History of Otago McLintock says that Dick “distinguished himself more by an assiduous devotion to duty than by any display of brilliance. Moreover, his policy, cautious and unimaginative, was a true reflection of his character, estimable but dull.”

Thomas Dick was married three times: first, in 1846, in London, to Mary Barber; secondly, in 1850, at St. Helena, to Elizabeth Clarrissa Darling (died 1869); and, thirdly, on 10 May 1871, at Invercargill, to Elizabeth Reid Stuart Walker, the widow of Frederick Walker. He had two sons and one daughter by his second marriage. Dick died on 5 February 1900 at Queen Street, Dunedin.

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

• The History of Otago, McLintock, A. H. (1949)
• Evening Star (Dunedin), 6 Feb 1900 (Obit)
• Otago Daily Times, 7 Feb 1900 (Obit).

These are microscopic single-celled green plants occurring both in the sea and in fresh waters. Many species form long chains of identical cells, and many have very attractive and intricate forms when viewed under the microscope. They are one of the more important groups of plants in the open ocean which provide directly or indirectly the food material for larger plankton and fish. The silica skeletons are sometimes deposited in enormous numbers on the sea bottom, forming diatomaceous earth. Such deposits are sometimes found on land, where the sea bed has been uplifted, and these are used both as a fine polishing grit and as the inert material in which nitroglycerine is absorbed to form dynamite. New Zealand geologists have recently begun to take an interest in fossil diatoms with a view to estimating the age of certain deposits and to determining whether they are of marine or freshwater origin.

by Richard Morrison Cassie, M.SC.(N.Z.), D.SC.(AUCK.), Senior Lecturer in Zoology, University of Auckland.

(1833–1908).

Famous whip of Cobb and Co.'s mail-coach services in Victoria and Otago, and known as “Cabbage Tree Ned”.

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

There were few good roads in Otago in the days of Ned Devine, and in Central Otago they were little more than potholed byways and coach tracks flung in slovenly fashion, like the clothes of a drunken man, across hills and valleys, unbridged rivers, and dried-up watercourses. Travel of any sort was a mixture of trepidation and thrills, with everything dependent on the common sense, resource, and capability of the man on the box. Devine by nature and experience was well fitted for the task. When seeking employment in Dunedin he demonstrated his skill outside the Cobb and Co. depot of Hoyt and Co. by placing a half-crown in the middle of the road, manoeuvring a rear wheel of the coach on top of it, and then completing a full turn without allowing the wheel to move off the coin. Devine was a man of great courage, with a ready tongue and a rough but kindly courtesy, but above all he was an indifferent respecter of persons to the extent that he was always loath to take the mighty at their own valuation. The competition among miners, settlers, and travellers to ride with him was keen, but he would show no favour. It was a case of first come, first served, as he demonstrated when a Cabinet Minister demanded an ex officio box seat. Devine told him curtly the position on the coach was bespoken, and when the politician informed him angrily that he was the Minister of Mines, the famous whip's only reply was, “Well, now, that's a fine post. You want to see that you hang on to it!” Evidence of the impression Ned Devine made upon his public is to be found in the monument to his memory which was unveiled in Ballarat on 7 February 1936, 28 years after his death. The memorial was raised by his admirers both in Australia and in New Zealand.

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

• Early Days in Central Otago, Gilkison, R. (1936)
• Medical Practice in Otago and Southland in the Early Days, Fulton, R.V. (1922)
• Otago Witness, 29 Dec 1908 (Obit)
• Otago Daily Times, 27 Dec 1908 (Obit).

The New Zealand civil defence organisation follows the United Kingdom and Australian schemes with appropriate modifications. It provides for a threetier system of control:

National: The Government through the Ministry of Civil Defence exercises national control. It also carries out national planning with the assistance of advisory committees representative of the armed services, Government Departments, local authorities' organisations, and voluntary bodies. They advise on certain aspects of planning, technical matters, and training procedures. In a national emergency the Director of Civil Defence and his staff, with the assistance of the National Civil Defence Committee, would act in both an advisory and executive capacity.

Regional: There are three civil defence regions—northern, comprising the upper half of the North Island; central, comprising the lower half of the North Island; and southern, which comprises the South Island. Regional commissioners are based at Auckland, Palmerston North, and Christchurch respectively. These officers provide liaison with local authorities, advising and assisting them in establishing local units. In a major emergency the regional commissioners direct action within a particular area. They are assisted by the Regional Civil Defence Committee, which comprises a group of senior Government district officers and a fire service officer. The primary function of this Committee in a major disaster is to plan the effective coordination of Government and other essential public services within each region, in support of local civil defence organisations.

Local: Local authorities, acting individually or in groups, are responsible for establishing local civil defence corps as operational units. Each corps is composed of five sections: headquarters, warden, rescue, welfare, and casualty.

Agencies such as the armed services, police, and other relevant Government Departments and the fire service, hospitals, and public utilities work in close liaison with these local units. The Ministry encourages local authorities to group on a subregional basis for the better integration of emergency services and the effective implementation of mutual aid. National planning also envisages industrial civil defence units in establishments which have sufficient employees. These units will follow closely the United Kingdom pattern.

by George Caird Row, B.COM., C.I.S. Civil Defence Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

The Civil Defence Act, which was passed on 5 December 1962, deals with the powers and functions of the Director of Civil Defence, regional commissioners, and other officers as well as with the formal declaration of states of national energency and major disaster. It defines the role of Central Government and local authorities, sets out the obligations and powers of the latter, and bestows special emergency powers on the police and civil defence officers.

The Act establishes a National Civil Defence Committee, Advisory Planning Committees, and Regional Civil Defence Committees. The Local Authorities' Emergency Powers Act 1953 was repealed and the Public Safety Conservation Act 1932 amended so as to exclude from the operation of the latter emergencies declared under the Civil Defence Act.

In 1959 the Ministry of Civil Defence was established within the Department of Internal Affairs, the Minister of Internal Affairs being appointed Minister of Civil Defence. The Secretary for Internal Affairs was appointed Director of Civil Defence.

Civil defence planning in New Zealand is based on the proposition that protection of the local populace is primarily a function of the territorial local authorities. This has been recognised statutorily since 1953. The role of the Ministry lies in national planning, in coordinating Central Government resources nationally and regionally, in using those resources in support of local authority action, in coordinating and advising local authorities, in instructing local controllers, and in public education activities.

The Public Safety Conservation Act of 1932 dealt with emergencies. It empowered the declaration of a state of emergency in certain circumstances, including natural disasters, authorised the making of special emergency regulations, and bestowed certain emergency powers on police officers for the purpose of preserving life, protecting property, and maintaining order. In 1939 the Government instituted the Emergency Precautions Scheme based on local authorities' emergency organisations, with the double object of providing protection against natural disaster or enemy action. The next major move was the passing of the Local Authorities' Emergency Powers Act of 1953 which empowered local authorities to make plans for emergencies arising within their respective districts and to assume extraordinary powers in the event of an emergency. The Government at that time also made firm plans for the coordination of relief measures in major disasters.

The White Paper Review of Defence 1958 expressed the Government's intention to establish a Ministry of Civil Defence, which would be responsible for planning and coordinating necessary measures against the threat of attack by conventional or nuclear weapons and against the risk of natural disaster.

Civil defence is concerned with protecting the population from dangers arising from war conditions or natural disaster. Accordingly, its primary functions are to save life and to aid the homeless.