Frank Haigh papers.

Obituary notice from New Zealand Herald 20 July 1992: Mr Frank Haydn Haigh OBE, a former prominent Auckland lawyer who championed activist and union causes, has died at Auckland Hospital, aged 94. Mr Haigh retired in 1985 at 87 after a professional lifetime of representing the little man, unions, and sometimes unpopular causes. Mr Haigh was a committed lawyer of the left during the long and bitter Auckland waterfront dispute of 1951. His son, Mr John Haigh, also a lawyer, recalled yesterday that in acting for the unions he was "not exactly regarded favourably" by many others in the profession. When he was introduced to the late Minister of Justice, the Hon Ralph Hanan, the latter remarked, "Oh you're the chap that spends his time fighting for lost causes". In 1973 Mr Haigh's friends gathered to thank him. The guest list was something of a who's who of people from the Campaign Against Rising Prices, the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination, the Carpenters', Northern Drivers', Seamen's and Labourers' unions, the Maori group Nga Tamatoa and the Humanist and Rationalist associations. Those who knew him well described him as an old-style radical-liberal, the sort of man credited by Bernard Shaw as having a "capacity for moral outrage". Mr Haigh was born in Invercargill of an English father and Irish mother. His first job was as a cadet-clerk in the Lands and Survey Department in Wellington. This whetted his appetite for law and he was taken on as a junior clerk by a prominent Wellington lawyer, Patrick Joseph O'Regan. After qualifying he joined the Auckland law firm Russell McVeagh before starting his own practice in about 1925. The firm expanded and became known as a notable left-liberal outpost of the legal community. Its clients included several large trade unions as well as people from the academic and literary worlds. Some of these became Mr Haigh's close personal friends and poets such as A.R.D. Fairburn, R.A.K. Mason and Denis Glover knew the Haigh home as a haven of hospitality and encouragement. In the 1960s his firm gave a job to a young law student named David Lange. Mr Haigh was a long-time fighter for workers' compensation rights and he applauded the 1982 Accident Compensation Act as one of the most important laws passed during his legal career. Mr Haigh was made an OBE in 1990 for services to the community. He is survived by his wife, Honey, and sons, John and Tim. A daughter, Susan, died about 10 years ago.