Henry Augustus Field Explained

Henry Augustus Field
Constituency Mp:Otaki
Parliament:New Zealand
Term Start:4 December 1896
Term End:8 December 1899
Predecessor:James Wilson
Successor:William Hughes Field
Birth Date:1852
Birth Place:Wanganui, New Zealand
Death Date:8 December 1899 (aged 48)
Party:Liberal Party
Occupation:Surveyor, farmer, politician

Henry Augustus Field (1852 – 8 December 1899) was a Liberal Party Member of Parliament in New Zealand. By profession a surveyor, he retired in his late 20s due to rheumatism and became a farmer. He died in office just two days after having won his second parliamentary election.

Biography

Field was born in Wanganui in 1852, the son of Henry Claylands Field (1825–1912)[1] and his wife Margaret Symes Puslow.[2] His father was a civil engineer from Holybourne, Hampshire, England, who had come to Wanganui in the early 1850s.[3] H. A. Field received a private education at Wanganui. He became a survey cadet in 1868 and qualified in 1872.[4] Together with his Christchurch cousin, D. H. Monro, he surveyed the Upper Whanganui River and the Taupo District immediately following the New Zealand Wars.[5] He retired from surveying in 1878 as he suffered from rheumatism and moved to Waikanae, where he was farming.[6]

On 28 October 1879 at Waikanae, Field married Hannah Erskine, the daughter of Thomas Wilson.[7]

He won the Otaki electorate in the Horowhenua District in the 1896 general election. He was ill during the 1899 session and could not attend the parliamentary sittings on many occasions. Against medical advice, he contested the 1899 general election on 6 December, visibly ill at many of the meetings. He died two days after his re-election at his home in Waikanae.[8] His brother, William Hughes Field, won the resulting by-election on 6 January 1900. Hannah Field died in September 1904.[9]

Notes and References

  1. Book: Scholefield . Guy . Guy Scholefield . A Dictionary of New Zealand Biography : A–L . I . 1940 . . Wellington . 17 November 2013 . 248f . 9 March 2012 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120309082939/http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/files/documents/dnzb-1940/scholefield-dnzb-v1.pdf . dead.
  2. married 1st quarter 1851, Beaminster, Dorset FreeBMD accessed 20 Feb 2016
  3. News: The Late Mr. H. C. Field, C E . 20 February 2016 . . XXXXVII . 13622 . 1 March 1912 . 5.
  4. Book: Hamer, David . D. A. Hamer . The New Zealand Liberals: The Years of Power, 1891–1912 . Auckland University Press . 1988 . 1-86940-014-3 . 362 .
  5. News: Obituary . . 11 December 1899 . 3 February 2015 . LVIII . 140 . 5.
  6. News: New Members . 20 February 2016 . . LIII . 9592 . 5 December 1896 . 8.
  7. News: Marriage . 20 February 2016 . Manawatu Herald . II . 20 . 31 October 1879 . 2.
  8. Book: Scholefield, Guy . New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1949 . 3rd . First ed. published 1913 . 1950 . Govt. Printer . Wellington .
  9. News: Deaths . . 13 September 1904 . 3 February 2015 . LXVIII . 64 . 1.