Robert Logan (politician)

Robert Logan CB (2 April 1863 – 4 February 1935) was a New Zealand runholder, local politician, military leader and administrator. He was born in Langton, Berwickshire, Scotland on 2 April 1863.[1]

Logan migrated to New Zealand from Scotland in 1881 aged 19. He became a farmer and Mounted Rifles volunteer and a member of the New Zealand Staff Corps, and rose to command the Auckland Military District just prior to the War.

Colonel Robert Logan was a key figure in the wartime administration of Western Samoa and was subsequently decorated by the British and French governments. He remained the Military Administrator and British representative to Samoa from the initial occupation to the end of the War, and was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath in the 1917 New Year Honours and awarded the Croix de Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur in December 1919 "in recognition of valuable services in Samoa during the first year of the military occupation of that territory."[2]

In Samoa he tried to win local sentiment but struggled with complex economic and indigenous issues, and significantly mishandled the arrival of the influenza pandemic in November 1918, resulting in over 7,500 deaths.[3] Logan left Samoa in January 1919 and was condemned for negligence in his handling of the Samoan influenza outbreak by a New Zealand commission of inquiry (American Samoa was quarantined by the Governor, John Martin Poyer, and had no influenza deaths).

He was subsequently posted to the retired list in December 1919. He returned to Lanarkshire, Scotland, and died in 1935.[4]

References

  1. ↑ Munro, Doug. "Robert Logan". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved December 2011.
  2. ↑ London Gazette, 15 December 1919, p.15578; W. McDonald, Honours and Awards to the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the Great War 1914–1918, Napier: Helen McDonald, 2001, p.183.
  3. ↑ Munro, D., ‘Logan, Robert 1863 – 1935’, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, 7 July 2005, http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/ (5 Jan 06).
  4. ↑ Brewer, Mark E., New Zealand and the Legion of Honour: The Great War, The Volunteers: Journal of the New Zealand Military Historical Society, 2011.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, March 14, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.