PMs’ graves a sorry sight
Let’s clean up the graves of our former leaders, pleads Nigel Roberts.
Four former New Zealand prime ministers lie in Karori cemetery, and at Easter weekend I decided to take advantage of the Covidinduced calm to visit their graves.
From Richard Seddon – ‘‘King Dick’’ – through to and including Jacinda Ardern, only 26 people have been prime minister of New Zealand. All of them, no matter whether they held the role for long periods or merely briefly, have been amazing people.
As Neale McMillan noted in his book, Top of the Greasy Pole, ‘‘Every Prime Minister of New Zealand has had exceptional talents in some things and above-average competence in most others. All are intelligent. All are achievers.’’
To have the graves of four prime ministers – 15 per cent of all this country’s 20th and 21st-century political leaders – in one location is something to be celebrated. The lives and the achievements of these outstanding people deserve to be both remembered and commemorated. They help to tell the story of this country.
However, I was shocked by what I found in the cemetery. Only one of the prime ministers’ graves is in good repair. Two are surrounded by weeds, and the inscriptions on all three of the remaining graves are barely legible.
Peter Fraser’s grave is the only one that is neat and well tended. It’s an impressive memorial to the man who led New Zealand through the bulk of World War II and for four years afterwards.
Fraser is frequently (and, in my opinion, correctly) one of two people judged to be New Zealand’s best prime minister. (The other is Richard Seddon, who was in that role from 1893-1906.) It is appropriate that Fraser’s grave is well sign-posted and easy to find.
He was New Zealand’s second Labour prime minister. His Cabinet colleague, Walter Nash, was the country’s third Labour PM, and was prime minister for three years from 1957 to 1960.
Nash and his wife, Lotty, are both buried in Karori cemetery. Sadly, the inscription on their headstone is barely legible. No-one should be treated in this manner – particularly not someone still remembered as ‘‘Good old Walter’’.
The two other prime ministers interred in Karori were both shortterm PMs: Sir William Hall-Jones and Sir Francis Henry Dillon Bell.
Hall-Jones was a stop-gap prime minister after the death of Seddon in June 1906 and before Joseph Ward’s elevation to the top job 58 days later.
Likewise, Bell led the country for just 17 days after William Massey’s death in May 1925 and before Gordon Coates’ accession to the post later the same month.
However, both Hall-Jones and Bell had outstanding careers and New Zealand was exceptionally well served by both.
Hall-Jones was described by Seddon as ‘‘the best administrator I have in my Cabinet’’, and after 18 years in Parliament, he succeeded William Pember Reeves as New Zealand’s high commissioner in London.
Bell’s glittering career included being elected mayor of Wellington on three occasions, serving as president of the Law Society; and – like his father before him – he was a leading member of the Legislative Council (which, before its abolition in December 1950, was the upper house of the NZ Parliament).
Bell also has a unique place in New Zealand history: he was the first New Zealand-born prime minister.
Iwas deeply dismayed to find the graves of both these former prime ministers are almost unbelievably scruffy. They are surrounded by weeds. The plaque on Hall-Jones’ grave is almost unreadable, as is the carved inscription on Bell’s tombstone.
Have we no pride in our history? Why can’t we celebrate this country’s rich heritage? Surely we can do better than this.
A comparison with the United States is instructive.
In most respects, New Zealand manages its affairs so much better than the United States (the Covid-19 crisis being a case in point). However, one glaring exception is the way in which America honours in leaders.
Some years ago, for example, I visited the grave of a minor and not hugely successful US president – namely, Calvin Coolidge.
In a small woodland cemetery in remote rural Vermont, Coolidge’s grave is clean and tidy. The inscription on his unpretentious headstone is easy to read. It is moving in its simplicity.
I would, therefore, like to issue a challenge to:
■ the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage – who just happens to be our current prime minister;
■ the National Party’s spokesperson for the portfolio, Jonathan Young (whose own heritage includes the fact that his father and an older sister were in Parliament before him); and
■ Andy Foster, the current mayor of Wellington and long-term city councillor for the Karori area.
Let’s clean up the graves of the prime ministers in the Karori cemetery. Let’s trumpet the fact that they are in this city and that they are part of our heritage and history.