Sir George Fowlds papers.

Collection

Identifier: MSS-Archives-A-17

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The bulk of the papers consist of the office records of a Cabinet minister, his earlier and later life being less fully documented. The correspondence covers family, business, political and social matters with a wide array of people in N.Z. and overseas, particularly the United Kingdom, U.S.A., and South Africa. His regular letters to his London friend T.W. Orr provide a commentary on George Fowlds's affairs and the N.Z. scene 1906-1918. There are some 40,000 letters, together with files of newspaper clippings, documents relating to the parliamentary period, account books and other records of his many-sided business affairs, correspondence relating to a large number of organisations, drafts of speeches, articles, sermons and reminiscences, books and other printed matter including photographs and cartoons.

Dates

1872 - 1934

Creator

Grey, George, Sir (Person)
Yates, C. C. (Person)
Withy, Arthur (Person)
Young, J. A. (Person)
Valintine, Thomas Harcourt (Person)
Turnbull, Alexander (Person)
Wilson, James (Person)
Ward, Joseph, Sir (Person)
Rutherford, A. W. (Person)
Spragg, Wesley (Person)
Taylor, T.E. (Person)
Tobacco Producers' Trust Ltd (Organization)
Porangi (Person)
Renown Clothing Company Ltd (Organization)
Riddet, W (William) (Person)
Rotary International. New Zealand (Organization)
Parenga Tung Oil Ltd (Organization)
Payne, J. (Person)
Peren, G.S. (Geoffrey Sylvester) (Person)
Plunket, William Lee, Sir (Person)
New Zealand Red Cross Society (Organization)
St John (Organization : N.Z.) (Organization)
O'Regan, P.J. (Patrick Joseph) (Person)
Orr, Thomas W. (Person)
Bengough, J.W. (John Wilson) (Person)
Barclay, Alfred Richard (Person)
Cleary, Henry W. (Henry William) (Title of a work--Child in the home and the school .; ) (Person)
Blomfield, J.C. (Person)
Cumberworth, F.H. (Person)
Cohen, Mark (Person)
Flurscheim, Margaret (Person)
Eden District Cricket Club (Organization)
Low, David (Person)
Mackenzie, Beryl (Person)
Jenkin, John (Person)
Jubilee Institute for the Blind (Organization)
Higgins, George (Person)
Fowlds, G.M. (George Matthew), 1886-1974 (Person)
Hiscocks, E.F. (Ercildoune Frederick) (Person)
Flurscheim, Michael (Person)
New Zealand Export Traders Corporation (Organization)
New Zealand Land Values League (Organization)
New Zealand Alliance for the Abolition of the Liquor Traffic (Organization)
New Zealand Anti-Opium Association (Organization)
Meiklejohn, A. W. (Person)
Mt Tokatea Mineral Fertiliser Company (Organization)
Manson, William (Person)
McNab, Robert (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Not restricted

Biographical / Historical

Sir George Fowlds (1860-1934) was a Scot who spent some years in South Africa before moving to Auckland. He soon became a well-to-do clothier. His radical ideas encouraged him to stand for Parliament and he was elected in 1899. In 1906 he was appointed Minister of Education and Public Health in the Ward Ministry with George Hogben as Inspector-General of Schools. In 1911 Fowlds resigned from the Ministry and became associated with the United Labour Party. He was not re-elected to Parliament, and devoted his life to public affairs- - patriotic organisations and the Temperance movement, and later as President of Auckland University College and other bodies. He was a leader of the Congregational Union and of the Freemasons .He was well known for his radical views on social questions as a single tax and was also an advocate of proportional representation, town planning, secular education and other reforms.