Thomas Hislop (mayor)
Thomas Charles Atkinson Hislop (1888–1965) was the Mayor of Wellington from 1931 to 1944.
He was a Wellington City Councillor from 1913 to 1915, when he resigned to serve in the Wellington Regiment in World War I. He became a Councillor again from 1927 to 1931, and then Mayor from 1931 to 1945.
He was the political leader of the Democrat Party organised by Albert Davy in 1934-35. The party was anti-socialist, but in the 1935 general election its main effect was to split the anti-Labour vote, and it disappeared soon afterwards. Mayor Tom Hislop was seen as a remote, even erratic figure, and his right-wing views regularly brought him into conflict with the wartime Labour government. But the attack on Hubert Nathan a Jew and Citizens candidate for the Harbour Board by some trade unionists resulted in the defeat of all the Labour candidates to the Council in 1941 [1]
In 1940 Noël Coward was on a world entertainment and propaganda tour, and at a mayoral reception in Wellington had a set-to with the Mayoress who seemed to me to suffer from delusions of grandeur .... She said to me in ringing tones that I was never to dare to sing "The Stately Homes of England" again as it was an insult to the homeland and that neither she or anybody else liked it. I replied coldly that for many years it had been one of my greatest successes, whereupon she announced triumphantly to everyone within earshot: 'You see - he can’t take criticism!' Irritated beyond endurance I replied that I was perfectly prepared to take intelligent criticism at any time, but I was not prepared to tolerate bad manners. With this I bowed austerely and left the party. [2][3]
Hislop was Chairman of the Wellington Provincial Centennial Council and the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition Company from 1937; the Centennial was in 1940.
He was High Commissioner to Canada from 1950 to 1957.
His father Thomas William Hislop was Mayor of Wellington from 1905 to 1908.
References
- ↑ Wellington: Biography of a city by Redmer Yska (Reed, Auckland, 2006) page 158-159 ISBN 0-7900-1117-4
- ↑ Future Indefinite by Noel Coward, page 185 (William Heinemann, London, 1954)
- ↑ Wellington: Biography of a city by Redmer Yska (Reed, Auckland, 2006) pages 157-158 ISBN 0-7900-1117-4
- No Mean City by Stuart Perry (1969, Wellington City Council) includes a paragraph and a portrait or photo for each mayor.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by George Troup |
Mayor of Wellington 1931–1944 |
Succeeded by Will Appleton |