MAKERS OF WELLINGTON

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 82, 3 October 1929, Page 17

MAKERS OF WELLINGTON

PIONEEES OF THE -'FOETIES

JOE DRANSFIELD

.. 1827-1906. • (By "Condor.") A tall well-set-up figure of a'Yorkshireman, known to everybody in thetown for his straight talk and warmhearted generosity, Joo Dransfield was for some years ono of the leading citizens of Wellington. Dransfield was born in 1527 at Huddorsfield, where his father was the proprietor of a woollen mill. He was educated usefully at the local school, and as a young man sailed for Australia iv the Falcon and spent five years In and around Sydney. In 1557 He crossed over to Wellington, where his brother, C. E. Dransfield,. had already established a good'merchant's business. The two worked together for a while and did well. In 1860 Joe- Dransfield was a

well-known coal: merchant, carrying out considerable contracts for tho New Zealand Steam Navigation Company and .M'Meekan Blackwoods. Widening his-' interests ho was for many years a successful genera] merchant, and it was not until 1888 that this .business was sold to the United Importers1 Company.

In public life. Dransfield was a member of the Provincial Council, in which ho represented Wellington City from ISG3 to 1867, and again from ISG9. to 1573. Twice during that time he was a member of the executive. Ho was chairman of the old Town Board which preceded the City Council, and it was through his exertions.that,the change was "made. Ho. th en been me Mayor of the city from 1870-74. While- holding this office Dransfieia;- took the . first steps, in face of sonic . opposition, towards the reclamation of land from the harbour. Ho was again elected Mayor iv IS7B, and had just been reclectcd the following year when, like niiiny others in tlioso days, lip was financially embarrassed ami resigned to devote his whole attention to liis business. Tic had the reputation of being tho best, civic administrator up to that tim.e. He was also in IS7S-79 chairman' •of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce. He was a director of the New Zealand Stcani Navigation Company. Though ho remained a prominent citizen for a decado later, Dransfield was almost a helpless invalid for tho last fifteen years of his life, and when ho died on 21st September, 1906, it was onlj- tho older citizens of Wellington who remembered tho hale, energetic first citizen of tho 'seventies.