Cecil Clinkard

Cecil Clinkard
Portrait of Clinkard
1st Mayor of Rotorua
In office 1923–1927
Succeeded by	Thomas McDowell
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Rotorua
In office 14 November 1928 – 1 November 1935
Preceded by	Frank Hockly
Succeeded by	Alexander Moncur
Majority	200 (1928); 57 (1931)
Personal details
Born	1862 Oxfordshire, England
Died	24 March 1941 (aged 79) Rotorua, New Zealand
Political party	United
Children	George Clinkard (son)

Cecil Henry Clinkard (1862 – 24 March 1941) was a United Party Member of Parliament in New Zealand, and the first Mayor of Rotorua.

Early life

Clinkard was born in 1862 in Oxfordshire, England, where his family had been freehold farmers for many generations.^[1] He came to New Zealand with his parents in 1867. His father, Thomas Clinkard, was the first settler at Makarau on the Kaipara Harbour, where for three years his mother did not set eyes on a white woman. Being brought up to bush work, he commenced as a bush contractor at the age of 16, and mainly worked in the timber industry as a young adult. He took up large tracts of bush country and then worked out the timber, having it towed to Wairoa, from where it got shipped to London, Sydney, Adelaide, and the southern ports of New Zealand.^[1]

Clinkard was then one of the original settlers of the Mamaku area in the Bay of Plenty.^[2] Later, he lived at Devonport.^[3] He moved to Rotorua in 1917 and became a taxi proprietor.^[2]

Political career

Parliament of New Zealand
Years	Term	Electorate		Party
1928–1931	23rd	Rotorua		United
1931–1935	24th	Rotorua		United

Clinkard was secretary to the Kaukapakapa Road Board.^[4]

Clinkard first stood in a general election in 1905 for the Liberal Party, when he challenged the incumbent in the Waitemata electorate, Ewen Alison.^[5] He unsuccessfully contested the Rotorua electorate in the 1922 and 1925 elections, coming a close second in 1922, and a distant second in 1925.^[6][7]

On the formation of the Rotorua Borough Council in 1923, Clinkard was elected as the inaugural Mayor of Rotorua and served in that role until 1927.^[2][8] Following his mayoralty, he served on the Borough Council for another year. He was Rotorua's representative on the Tauranga Harbour Board.^[2]

He won the Rotorua electorate in 1928, but was defeated in 1935,^[9] when he came third out of four candidates.^[10]

In 1935, he was awarded the King George V Silver Jubilee Medal.^[11] Clinkard was a member of the Rotorua Rotary Club, and was active on the school committee.^[2]

Family and death

On 11 July 1883, Clinkard married Julia Letitia Hooper (born 1862) at Onehunga.^[12][13] She was the daughter of the late Charles Hooper of Somersetshire, later Warkworth.^[1][14] Their eldest son was also named Cecil Henry; he married Margaret Tessier Gray in 1914.^[15] Four other sons, Charles Thomas,^[16] Sidney Eric,^[17] George William,^[18] and Alfred Edwin^[19] served in WWI. George William Clinkard was later a notable public servant and trade commissioner.^[12]

His wife died on 26 July 1932 at Auckland Hospital; Clinkard was a member of parliament at the time.^[20] His grandson, Derek Charles Gray Clinkard (the eldest son of his eldest son), died on 8 March 1940 in a plane crash in WWII.^[21][22] A year later, Cecil Clinkard died on 24 March 1941 aged 79 at Rotorua after a long illness.^[3] He was survived by five sons.^[4][23]

Notes

1. Cyclopedia Company Limited 1902, pp. 630f.
2. "Cecil Clinkard". Rotorua District Library. Retrieved 2 December 2014.
3. "Mr. C. H. Clinkard". The Evening Post. CXXXI (72). 26 March 1941. p. 11. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
4. "Obituary". Auckland Star. LXXII (71). 25 March 1941. p. 4. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
5. "The Waitemata Election". Auckland Star. XXXVI (283). 27 November 1905. p. 4. Retrieved 2 December 2014.
6. Hislop, J. (1923). The General Election, 1922. Government Printer. p. 2. Retrieved 6 December 2014.
7. The General Election, 1925. Government Printer. 1926. p. 2. Retrieved 20 November 2014.
8. "Mayor of Rotorua". Auckland Star. 28 February 1923. p. 3. Retrieved 2 July 2013.
9. Wilson 1985, p. 189.
10. "General Election". The Evening Post CXX (138). 7 December 1935. p. 11. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
11. "Official jubilee medals". The Evening Post. 6 May 1935. p. 4. Retrieved 2 July 2013.
12. Woodfield, Ted. "George William Clinkard". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved December 2011.
13. "Onehunga Parish Marriages 1860 to 1920". Onehunga Parish. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
14. "Marriages". The New Zealand Herald XX (6758). 16 July 1883. p. 4. Retrieved 2 December 2014.
15. "Marriages". The New Zealand Herald LI (15594). 28 April 1914. p. 1. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
16. "Cenotaph Record". Auckland War Memorial Museum. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
17. "Cenotaph Record". Auckland War Memorial Museum. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
18. "Cenotaph Record". Auckland War Memorial Museum. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
19. "Cenotaph Record". Auckland War Memorial Museum. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
20. "Obituary". The New Zealand Herald LXIX (21245). 27 July 1932. p. 14. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
21. "Cenotaph Record". Auckland War Memorial Museum. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
22. "Derek Charles Gray Clinkard". Lincolnshire Parish Councils. Scotter Parish Council. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
23. "Deaths". The New Zealand Herald. LXXVIII (23923). 25 March 1941. p. 1. Retrieved 12 December 2014.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cyclopedia Company Limited (1902). The Cyclopedia of New Zealand : Auckland Provincial District. Christchurch: The Cyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 3 December 2014.
• Wilson, James Oakley (1985) [First published in 1913]. New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1984 (4th ed.). Wellington: V.R. Ward, Govt. Printer. OCLC 154283103.