Chaotic Beginnings: Local Governance in Auckland, 1841-1851

The Danger of Interesting Times

Voter turnout for the Auckland 2025 local body elections indicated that interest in local governance is at an all-time low. The region received the lowest turnout in the country of only 29.3%. This disinterest seems to stem from the fact that local governance is a fairly dull task, which can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, high voter turnout is important for a functioning democracy. On the other, the reason local government is seen as boring could be that it functions well, so it can remain in the background. One only has to look back to the mostly forgotten and tumultuous colonial history of Auckland’s early local government in the 1850s and 60s to see why a ‘boring’ council is far preferable to an ‘interesting’ one.

A permanent, municipal council for Auckland was established in 1871, but only after two decades of effort and four failed iterations. The first two attempts, the Auckland Borough Council (1851-1852) and the first Auckland City Council (1854-1856), both failed spectacularly, but in incredibly different ways. Their histories reveal much about the character of early Auckland as a society growing and learning how to govern itself. The 1850s were a time when New Zealand’s constitution was being formed, and the shape that Auckland’s local government should take was the subject of debate and controversy. It was therefore a time when local government was far from boring, though much to its detriment.

This article is the first in a four-part series that charts the progress of local government in Auckland from the colony's foundation to the eventual establishment of a competent local authority in 1871.

Setting the Scene: Auckland in 1851

Auckland Town was established in 1841 by the Governor of New Zealand, William Hobson, with the intention for it to serve as the Colony’s capital. By 1851, Auckland’s settler population had grown, but it was by no means large. An 1850 census of the Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland area registered 7,600 Pākehā settlers, which accounted for more than 75% of the North Island’s settler population, excluding Wellington. Of those living in the Auckland region, just under half lived in the town itself.

Image: Queen Street and Shortland Street intersection in 1852. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 5-0018. Photographer: P J Hogan.

Though ten years had passed since Auckland was made the colonial capital, with New Zealand’s constitution still in limbo, there was barely any government for it to house. In 1846, the British Government had attempted to split the colony into the provinces of New Munster and New Ulster, with the former containing the South Island and Wellington, and the latter being the rest of the North Island. This constitution would have provided elected assemblies to begin the process of New Zealand’s self-governance. However, Governor George Grey refused to implement anything more than administrative measures, as he believed New Zealand was not ready for self-governance.

Regardless, Auckland’s Pākehā population needed management, and for the time being, this local government was carried out haphazardly by whatever executive and legislative authority existed. The ultimate executive authority over Auckland was split between the Lieutenant-Governor of New Ulster and the Governor of New Zealand (known briefly as the Governor-in-Chief from 1848 to 1853). In lieu of an elected legislative body, the Legislative Council, a small group appointed by the Governor-in-Chief, had the power to draft ordinances. Auckland was also divided into six administrative areas known as ‘Hundreds’, each of which elected three Wardens to oversee certain duties relating to the management of livestock. However, the Wardens played only a minor role in the overall management of Auckland. Thus, most of the executive management of Auckland was carried out by the two Governors and the Legislative Council, who were successful in ministering to Auckland’s needs as a growing town. Nevertheless, their intervention was always meant to be a temporary measure.

A Charter for Auckland

George Grey, now known as Governor-in-Chief, decided in July 1851 that Auckland was finally large enough to govern its own affairs and presented a charter to establish a Borough Council for Auckland in accordance with Royal Instructions related to the largely defunct 1846 Constitution. The Charter divided the Borough of Auckland, which comprised the entire Auckland isthmus and most of East and South Auckland, into 14 wards, which would each elect one councillor annually. The councillors would choose a mayor and four aldermen from among themselves to lead the Council. Together, the Council would have the authority to manage public works and make bylaws for the borough. Grey intended this as a proof-of-concept, and that other areas would be granted similar charters when they were ready, relieving the central government from the responsibility of overseeing individual settlements.

Image: The 14 Wards of the Auckland Borough Council, c.1850, Auckland Heritage Collections Map 4296. 1851 ward boundaries added by Benjamin Mander with reference to Papers Relative to the Proposed Constitution of New Zealand, Her Majesty’s Government, (London, George Edward Eyre and William Spottiswoode, 1852), 11-14. Final design by Ethan Mander.

 

Though the Borough Council would be the most democratic institution Auckland had seen to date, the bar was low. Suffrage was far from universal, being gatekept to a small class of men, who were almost exclusively Pākehā. All voters, referred to at the time as burgesses, were required to be male and own or occupy a tenement of a certain value in the borough. Additionally, ‘aliens’, ‘people of unsound mind’, anyone convicted of a felony, and anyone who received any public alms in the last six months were barred from registering. Māori were not explicitly excluded, but most were unable to vote as a result of the individualist framing of the land-owning requirements. Only 35 Māori men were admitted to Auckland’s Burgess Roll in October 1851. It is unknown whether any Māori actually voted, but their registration to vote indicates that interest in the new Council extended beyond Pākehā to a degree, even if Māori were unlikely to be represented by it. Overall, there were 1,400 enrolled burgesses for the 1851 election, which represented only 20% of the overall settler population of the borough. Despite the Council being Auckland’s first representative institution, the majority of people would have no say in who represented them on it.

Auckland’s new council was not the first attempt to create local government in New Zealand, as the Legislative Council endeavoured to grant Wellington a municipal charter as early as 1842. However, within a year, Wellington’s Charter was disallowed by the British Government because it attempted to usurp some of the Navy’s responsibilities. Auckland’s Charter was the first significant attempt at creating a municipal body since that time. The Auckland Borough Council’s inaugural election in November 1851 was technically not the first election held in Auckland, as there had been small elections for the Hundred Wardens since 1848, but it was quickly shaping up to be the largest and most significant one yet.

Newspaper Campaigns

Almost all public communication in Auckland was carried out by the region’s two newspapers, The Southern Cross (Cross) and The New Zealander. Both papers were deeply partisan and diametrically opposed, reflecting the views of their owners. Each paper never passed up an opportunity to attack the other’s credibility in a way that often bordered on sensationalism. Despite The Southern Cross’s early opposition to the formation of a council, as it might implement rates, both papers demonstrated great enthusiasm for local government and became centres for campaigning as the first election approached. This was best represented by the campaigns for and against John Williamson, founder of The New Zealander and a candidate for the Middle Town Ward, and John B. Bennett, the paper’s editor and a candidate for the West Town Ward. The two candidates’ positions of significance within one of Auckland’s two newspapers made the election a particularly contentious issue, and showed how newspapers could quickly become political battlegrounds.

Image: John Williamson, Co-Proprietor of The New Zealander and candidate for the Middle Town Ward, c.1860. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections. 

Image:  Patrick Dignan, candidate for the West Town Ward (John B. Bennett’s opponent), c.1890s Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 4-JDR11. 

For much of the nineteenth century, it was common practice for newspapers to print letters they had received from readers, often written under a pseudonym. This made it easy to write inflammatory comments with very little fear of repercussion. One such letter, written by ‘Civis’ in the Cross, was concerned about Williamson and Bennett’s connection to the press and politics. There was legitimate reason to be concerned about both of their candidacies, as the press was one of the few places Aucklanders could discuss politics. This freedom might be threatened if a paper suddenly found itself managed by politicians. This concern, coupled with the fact that the Cross never passed up such a prime opportunity to attack its rivals, meant that the paper began a campaign to prevent Bennett and Williamson’s victory. Unsurprisingly, The New Zealander took this as a challenge. Soon, advertisements attacking and defending Williamson and Bennett began to appear regularly in both newspapers. The Southern Cross, in particular, did not pull punches.

Three consecutive issues of The Southern Cross featured anonymous election poems and plays, purportedly written by Bennett or some of his supporters. The first was a poem entitled ‘West Ward Ho!’, in which the author, claiming to be Bennett, presented an exaggerated depiction of his canvassing strategy, which was seen as relying largely on the fact that he was more educated than his opponent, the Irish publican Patrick Dignan. ‘Bennett’ ironically expounded his virtues as an educated man through amateurish verse, and gave himself the pompous epithet “Sir Oracle Flam[e]”, while degrading Dignan as “a dumb plain man”. While the poem almost passed as campaigning by Bennett, the postscript suggests the author’s true allegiance, by lamenting that ‘Bennett’s’ campaign had not worked and that Dignan would surely prevail.

Image: “West Ward Ho!” The Southern Cross, November 4, 1851, p.3.

The next issue of the Cross compared Williamson and Bennett to the tyrant Caesar and his supporters with a parody of Mark Antony’s famous speech from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, proclaiming ‘Friends, Burgesses, and Voters, lend me your ears. I come to elect J[ohn] W[illiamson], and to praise him.’ Accompanying this play was a petition signed by 140 burgesses of the West Town Ward pledging their vote to Dignan in the election. Petitions like this were commonly used for election campaigns during this period, and five other candidates, including Williamson and Bennett, had already published similar petitions in both papers. Dignan’s petition was particularly astounding in the quantity of signatures, representing just under half of the total burgesses enrolled in the ward.

The Cross’s vitriolic tirade finished the following issue with a second satirical play. This one took the form of a debate in which “The Genius of the West Ward” trounced a representation of Bennett. Illogically, although the Cross saw itself as rallying against the contamination of politics by the press, that was exactly what it was doing with its campaign against Williamson and Bennett. The press of the time was inherently political, even if, as William Swainson, a member of the Legislative Council, commented that it was “sometimes more noisy than effective”.

A Bright Future?

When Election Day finally arrived on 18 November 1851, Auckland showed up in force. Only four Wards were uncontested, and the voter turnout was high, with 72% of all enrolled burgesses voting.29 The Southern Cross’s smear campaign had worked, as Williamson and Bennett both found themselves beaten at the polls. Williamson’s election was somewhat close, as he lost with 66 votes against 96 votes for Archibald Clark, the English draper who would soon be declared the first Mayor of Auckland. Unsurprisingly, Bennett’s election was more one-sided, with Dignan receiving 159 votes to Bennett’s 45. Overall, the enthusiasm for the election showed the citizens’ great hope for the new Council and the future of Auckland. This was reflected in the inauguration ceremony for the incoming councillors, held in Auckland’s first Supreme Court on Queen Street. The room was so crowded that a supporting beam and two brick pillars collapsed. Thankfully, disaster was averted when the Sheriff brought the crowd’s stomping to order. A large overflow crowd also waited outside so they could be involved. With a speech from the Lieutenant-Governor Robert Wynyard, a chorus of ‘God Save the Queen’ from the Band of the 58th Regiment, and a twelve-gun salute from Fort Britomart, Auckland’s first municipal council was here at last. Unfortunately, the future was not as bright as it seemed; the Auckland Borough Council had six months to live.

Author: Benjamin Mander,  Auckland History Initiative Summer Research Scholar

Ben is currently in his fourth year of a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) and Bachelor of Arts conjoint degree, majoring in History. 

Ben’s research connects law and history by studying the early history of local government in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, from 1841 to 1871, focusing on how the town’s colonists attempted to create structures of government to manage their new home. His project follows the tumultuous history of Auckland’s four local authorities established during those thirty years, with a focus on the Auckland Borough Council (1851-1852) and the first Auckland City Council (1854-1856). These councils were chaotic, short-lived, and ultimately left the town barely any better than they found it, but gave Auckland’s aspiring public servants the experience they needed for eventual success in 1871 with the establishment of the second Auckland City Council (1871-1989).  

Ben would like to thank his supervisors, Dr Jess Parr and Professor Linda Bryder, for the invaluable support they have provided during this project. He would also like to thank the archivists at the Auckland Library Heritage Collections, University of Auckland Cultural Collections, and Auckland Council Archives, without whom this research would have been impossible. Finally, Ben would especially like to thank Jonathan and Mary Mason for generously funding the scholarship that has enabled him to undertake this project.  

Read the rest of Benjamin's research on the Auckland History Initiative website.