Former mayor a man of honour and integrity
Ian Lawrence Wellington mayor b December 29, 1937 d March 8, 2019
Former Wellington mayor Ian Lawrence got so many calls from ratepayers at night that his wife resorted to hiding the family phone in the linen cupboard.
He was the kind of civic-minded man who couldn’t easily say no. If they were ringing late at night, they must have something important to ask, he would rationalise.
The local politician earned the name ‘‘Landslide Lawrence’’ after winning the Wellington mayoralty by 8000 votes in 1983, taking the helm after Michael Fowler stood down.
He had been a councillor since 1971 and served as deputy mayor from 1974-83. While deputising for Fowler, he was a dynamo behind building what would become the Michael Fowler Centre.
Long-time family friend Simon Woolf described him as the calmness that tempered the creative genius of Fowler, an architect. ‘‘He was the one who dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s.’’
He was an out-and-out administrator, careful and considered in his work, but there was also an adventurous side to the mayor.
He was the driving force behind putting the Nissan Mobil 500 street car race for touring cars on Wellington’s events calendar. That noisy, raucous event, first held in 1985, brought visitors in their thousands to the city till its final lap in 1996 – well past Lawrence’s tenure as mayor.
But perhaps one of his lasting legacies was the establishment of the International Arts Festival, now the New Zealand Festival.
Lawrence and his wife had been to the Adelaide Festival and thought something similar might bring Wellington to life, remarked former Festival Trust chair Sir David Gascoigne.
‘‘When he came back from Adelaide he started telling council and people in the arts community, ‘Wellington needs one of these!’ So he assembled a group of worthy citizens on a trust and got to work with the business of having a festival.’’
The biennial event, first staged in March 1986, became a great promoter of the city.
Former councillor Ruth Gotlieb said Lawrence had his work cut out convincing the council of the merits of an arts festival. ‘‘But he played a masterstroke when he pointed out that it was not a cost to the city, but an investment in it. That was reflective of Ian’s ability.’’
Ian Lawrence was born in Sydney, where his parents had been prominent in the Jewish community.
Educated at North Sydney Boys’ High School, he went on to study law at the University of Sydney, finishing his degree at Victoria University when his family emigrated to Wellington in 1958.
Tragedy visited the family early on when his younger sister, Jennifer, died at 19 in the course of routine surgery. It was a huge blow to the young Lawrence. But it was in his nature to counter adversity and harness it for the better.
He went on to become a senior partner in Wellington law firm Johnston Lawrence Elder, where he practised mainly commercial law.
‘‘In the early years I started out doing a lot of court work as a lawyer, and I quite enjoyed the cut and thrust of jury trials and legal argument,’’ he recalled in 2002. ‘‘If I’ve got a regret, it was that I didn’t pursue a career in the courts, because I liked that as well.’’
Lawrence married Sandra, and together they had five children.
Like his parents, he became deeply involved in the Wellington Jewish community, serving as chairperson of the United Israel Appeal and as a trustee of Moriah College. He embodied the Yiddish word ‘‘mensch’’, meaning a person of integrity and honour, says Woolf.
He was generous with his legal advice, carrying out a lot of pro bono work for individuals, charities, and organisations he believed in, and served as the honorary solicitor for the Wellington Jewish Centre.
‘‘He did a lot of things without taking anything in return.’’
Lawrence was perceived as being quiet and conservative, Woolf added. ‘‘The reality was that he was quiet, but that does not mean he wasn’t eloquent, assertive, strong and outgoing.
‘‘He was a lateral thinker with a great legal mind: he weighed up risks which were well calculated. Most of the time they came off.’’
Lawrence served only one term as Wellington’s mayor, losing the 1986 mayoralty on the back of Sir James Belich’s campaign to end the practice of discharging raw sewage into the sea along the south coast – an issue that played out in the media throughout his term.
In 1993, he was appointed as local government commissioner. He was president of Wellington Rotary Club, a Wellington regional councillor, chairman of the National Housing Commission, and a patron of tennis clubs around Wellington.
Tragedy came calling again when Sandra was struck with early onset Alzheimer’s. He made good provision for her welfare, and when she no longer knew him, faced the challenge of making Aliyah – moving to Israel – to be closer to his children and grandchildren.
He had been lonely in Wellington and found his new life with family stimulating socially and intellectually.
Lawrence, who was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1992, died in Jerusalem, where he had been living for about five years since being diagnosed with bowel cancer.
Sandra died less than a year ago. He is survived by children Nathan, Anton, Vanessa, Michael and Sarah, and 22 grandchildren.
He is buried next to Sandra, in Jerusalem, as had been their wish. – By Bess Manson
Sources: Lawrence family, the Dominion/Evening Post, Simon Woolf, Deborah Hart, Ruth Gotlieb, Sir David Gascoigne.
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