Campbell stamped mark on Auckland

While the horrors of two world wars, geographic isolation and several outstanding politicians laid the foundation of today’s New Zealand character, a number of less well-known people have also played a significant role in shaping who and what we are. Over

While successive Auckland City local body administrators have struggled with the complex issues associated with a big, spread-out city, without the foresight of one man, the task could have been much more difficult.

John Logan Campbell, known to many as the father of modern Auckland, was born in Scotland 1817 and graduated in medicine from the University of Edinburgh in 1839. He served for a time as surgeon on the emigrant ship Palmyra sailing to Australia and in 1840, arrived in New Zealand, initially at Coromandel and later to then capital of New Zealand, Auckland.

The little township on the shore of the Waitemata Harbour was little more than a camp of tents and a few ponga and raupo huts set up by Governor William Hobson. Campbell and William Brown, a Scottish lawyer who arrived at the same time, were the first Europeans to permanently settle in the area. They built the first timber house in the settlement which they called Acacia Cottage and which still survives in Cornwall Park.

Later they built the first general store in the rapidly growing settlement and Campbell became a leading figure in business and public life. Within a few years he was a director of the Bank of New Zealand, the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, and the New Zealand Insurance Company.

Campbell was appointed to the Auckland Executive Council on March 20 1855, and became Superintendent of Auckland Province in November that year.

Campbell entered the second New Zealand Parliament, representing the electorates of the City of Auckland until the end of 1856 when he left New Zealand and returned to Europe not intending to return.

Two years later he married Emma Wilson and returned briefly to New Zealand to reorganise his business affairs. However, in 1871, he returned permanently to New Zealand and took over sole control of his business interests founded Auckland’s first school of art in

1878.

When a major economic depression caused the stock market to collapse in

1886 Campbell sold several businesses and properties, concentrating his energies on Brown Campbell and Company, a brewery and liquor importer. Campbell retained his properties at One Tree Hill partly because he wanted to create a suitable residence for his family. He envisaged an Italianate mansion similar to James Williamson’s at Hillsborough, surrounded by an elegant estate. He set about planting trees to create a suitable landscape garden.

His wife, however, had other ideas and the house, Killbryde, was eventually built in Parnell, a location much more handy to town. This property is now part of the Parnell Rose Gardens and Dove Myer Robinson Park. The house was demolished in 1924. In his later years, Campbell was concerned about the increasing largely unplanned suburban development of Auckland. There were already slums with poor sanitation and few parks or open areas for recreation. There were large areas of undrained swamp. Campbell donated his remaining farmland at One Tree Hill to the city as a public amenity to be called Corinth Park – named after a part of Greece which Campbell had admired on his travels. His planting of groves of olive trees may have been connected to this.

The presentation of the park would probably have taken place after Campbell’s death in the form of a bequest had not providence intervened in the form of the Royal Tour of 1901.

In 1901 Campbell was approached to be temporary Mayor of Auckland for the Royal visit that year, as the Mayor, David Goldie, a temperance advocate did not want to toast the visiting Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York with alcohol.

Rather than create an election at short notice, it was decided to honour Campbell with the position. Campbell only accepted on the grounds that it was completely honorary and that he wouldn’t be involved in any politics. He was elected by the councillors, not the electorate. He resigned from the mayoralty the month after the royal visit. During the royal visit, Logan Campbell donated Cornwall Park to the people of New Zealand and named it after the Duke and Duchess.

He was made a knight bachelor in 1902 and lived long enough to witness the erection of the bronze statue of him in Mayoral Robes at the Manukau Road entrance to Cornwall Park. He died on June 22 1912, and is buried on the summit of Auckland’s One Tree Hill, which he had named, in the middle of Cornwall Park. He had always intended that the summit would be the location of a monument to the Maori people and left instructions and funds for its erection in his will and trust deeds. The trustees felt that development of the park as a public facility took immediate priority and so construction of the obelisk did not commence until the late 1930s.

This meant the official dedication was delayed as the Maori elders did not wish to formally dedicate it during a time of war. His grave is located in the middle of the flat platform which serves as the forecourt to the monument.

In 1901 Campbell was approached to be temporary Mayor of Auckland for the Royal visit that year, as the Mayor, David Goldie, a temperance advocate did not want to toast the visiting Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York with alcohol.