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Mayor of Wellington
Mayor of Wellington
	Coat of arms of the City of Wellington
	Flag of the City of Wellington
	Incumbent; Tory Whanau; since 15 October 2022
	Wellington City Council
Style	His/Her Worship
Member of	Wellington City Council
Seat	Wellington Town Hall
Appointer	Electors of Wellington City
Term length	Three years, renewable
Inaugural holder	George Hunter
Formation	3 October 1842
Deputy	Laurie Foon
Salary	$167,800
Website	official website

The Mayor of Wellington is the head of the municipal government of the City of Wellington. The mayor presides over the Wellington City Council. The mayor is directly elected using the Single Transferable Vote method of proportional representation. The current mayor is Tory Whanau, elected in October 2022 for a three-year-term.

Whanau, a member of the Green Party who ran as an independent, won the 2022 Wellington mayoral election in a landslide. She will be inaugurated within the same month. Whanau is the first indigenous person, and therefore the first Māori woman, to ascend to the Wellington mayoralty.^[2]^[3]

History

The development of local government in Wellington was erratic. The first attempt to establish governmental institutions, the so-called "Wellington Republic", was short-lived and based on rules written by the New Zealand Company. Colonel William Wakefield was to be the first president.^[4]

When the self-proclaimed government arrested a ship's captain for a violation of Wellington law, the Governor William Hobson quickly asserted British sovereignty over the whole of New Zealand, sending a warship and contingent of soldiers to Wellington Harbour and disbanding the council through a show of force.^[5]

In January 1842, the Legislative Council in Auckland passed the Municipal Corporations Ordinance, and in May 1842 Wellington was officially proclaimed a borough, the first municipality with this status. The office of mayor was established, but there were only two holders of this office under the Ordinance. George Hunter received the most votes in the election for 12 Burgesses to the new council on 3 October 1842 and was declared mayor.^[6] He died suddenly on 19 July 1843. William Guyton was then declared mayor, as runner-up in 1842.^[7]

The British Government disallowed the Municipal Corporations Ordinance, but news of this did not reach Wellington until late September 1843, after the election had been held and a second Burgess Roll of qualified voters had been prepared, in 1843 (both Rolls are listed in Carman 1970). After a brief period of little local government, the Province of Wellington was established in 1852, and most of Wellington's affairs were handled by the provincial government.

In 1863, a Town Board was established with three wards (Thorndon, Lambton, Te Aro), but no Mayor.^[8]

On 16 September 1870, Wellington was officially incorporated as a city, and a new mayoralty created, which continues to be in place.^[9] The establishment of the new council was primarily driven by John Plimmer, called by some the Father of Wellington. Initially, the councillors elected one of their own as mayor towards the end of the year. The role was traditionally awarded to the longest serving councillor. The system changed upon the introduction of The Municipal Corporations Acts Amendment Act, 1875. It legislated that mayors must be elected at large by eligible voters.^[10] The inaugural mayoral election was held in 1874 resulting in William Sefton Moorhouse being the first mayor to be elected directly by voters.^[11]

Since then the office of mayor has been held by 37 people. Five people have been mayor on two separate occasions, and the longest-serving mayor was Sir Frank Kitts, from 1956 to 1974. Tory Whanau, elected in 2022, is the first Māori person to serve as mayor.^[2]

List of mayors of Wellington

Key

Independent Citizens' Labour

#	Name	Term of office		Elections
-	George Hunter	3 October 1842	19 July 1843†	1842
-	William Guyton	26 July 1843	9 December 1843	—
1	Joe Dransfield	28 September 1870	17 December 1873	—
2	Charles Borlase	8 January 1874	28 January 1875	—
3	William Sefton Moorhouse	28 January 1875	1 December 1875	1874
4	William Hutchison	15 December 1875	19 December 1877	1875 • 1876
(1)	Joe Dransfield	19 December 1877	9 May 1879	1877 • 1878
5	George Allen	10 May 1879	29 May 1879	— (Acting Mayor)
(4)	William Hutchison	29 May 1879	30 November 1881	1879 • 1879 • 1880
6	George Fisher	30 November 1881	17 December 1885	1881 • 1882 1883 • 1884
7	Arthur Winton Brown	17 December 1885	15 December 1886	1885
8	Sam Brown	15 December 1886	27 December 1888	1886 • 1887
9	John Duthie	27 December 1888	19 December 1889	1888
10	Charles Johnston	19 December 1889	23 December 1890	1889
(7)	Arthur Winton Brown	23 December 1890	16 December 1891	1890
11	Francis Bell	16 December 1891	20 December 1893	1891 • 1892
12	Alfred Brandon	20 December 1893	20 December 1894	1893
13	Charles Luke	20 December 1894	19 December 1895	1894
(6)	George Fisher	19 December 1895	16 December 1896	1895
(11)	Francis Bell	16 December 1896	15 December 1897	1896
14	John Blair	15 December 1897	21 December 1899	1897 • 1898
15	John Aitken	21 December 1899	4 May 1905	1899 • 1900 • 1901 1902 • 1903 • 1904
16	Thomas William Hislop	4 May 1905	5 May 1909	1905 • 1906 1907 • 1908
17	Alfred Newman	5 May 1909	5 May 1910	1909
18	Thomas Wilford	5 May 1910	2 May 1912	1910 • 1911
19	David McLaren	2 May 1912	8 May 1913	1912
20	John Luke	8 May 1913	11 May 1921	1913 • 1914 • 1915 1917 • 1919
21	Robert Wright	11 May 1921	13 May 1925	1921 • 1923
22	Charles Norwood	13 May 1925	11 May 1927	1925
23	George Troup	11 May 1927	20 May 1931	1927 • 1929
24	Thomas Hislop	20 May 1931	14 June 1944	1931 • 1933 • 1935 1938 • 1941
25	Will Appleton	14 June 1944	6 December 1950	1944 • 1947
26	Robert Macalister	6 December 1950	6 December 1956	1950 • 1953
27	Frank Kitts	6 December 1956	13 November 1974	1956 • 1959 • 1962 1965 • 1968 • 1971
28	Michael Fowler	13 November 1974	26 October 1983	1974 • 1977 • 1980
29	Ian Lawrence	26 October 1983	30 October 1986	1983
30	Jim Belich	30 October 1986	28 October 1992	1986 • 1989
31	Fran Wilde	28 October 1992	28 October 1995	1992
32	Mark Blumsky	28 October 1995	27 October 2001	1995 • 1998
33	Kerry Prendergast	27 October 2001	27 October 2010	2001 • 2004 • 2007
34	Celia Wade-Brown	27 October 2010	10 October 2016	2010 • 2013
35	Justin Lester	10 October 2016	19 October 2019	2016
36	Andy Foster	19 October 2019	15 October 2022	2019
37	Tory Whanau	15 October 2022	Present	2022

List of deputy-mayors of Wellington

Key

Independent Citizens' Labour Greens

Name		Term of office
	John Smith	1910	1912	Wilford
Vacant
	George Frost	1920	1921	Luke
Vacant
	Martin Luckie	1923	1931	Troup
	William Bennett	1931	1936†	Hislop
	Martin Luckie	1936	1947	Hislop
	Martin Luckie	1936	1947	Appleton
	Robert Macalister	1947	1950	Appleton
	William Stevens	1950	1953	Macalister
	Ernest Toop	1953	1956	Macalister
	Harry Nankervis	1956	1960	Kitts
	Bill Arcus	1960	1962
	Denis McGrath	1962	1965
	Matt Benney	1965	1966
	Bob Archibald	1966	1970
	George Porter	1970	1971
	John Jeffries	1971	1974
	Ian Lawrence	1974	1983	Fowler
	Gavin Wilson	1983	1986	Lawrence
	Helene Ritchie	1986	1988	Belich
	Terry McDavitt	1988	1989
	David Watt	1989	1995
	David Watt	1989	1995	Wilde
	Kerry Prendergast	1995	2001	Blumsky
	Alick Shaw	2001	2007	Prendergast
	Ian McKinnon	2007	2013	Prendergast
	Ian McKinnon	2007	2013	Wade-Brown
	Justin Lester	2013	2016	Wade-Brown
	Paul Eagle	2016	2017	Lester
	Jill Day	2017	2019	Lester
	Sarah Free	2019	2022	Foster
	Laurie Foon	2022	present	Whanau

Timeline

Notes

^ Hendry, Simon (2 May 2016). "Mayors and councillors' pay will increase by between 1.5 and 3 per cent from July". The Dominion Post. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
^ ^a ^b "Wellington election: Tory Whanau 'humbled' to be new mayor". Newshub. Archived from the original on 8 October 2022. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
^ "Former Green Party chief of staff Tory Whanau elected as mayor of Wellington". NZ Herald. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
^ Betts 1970, pp. 21.
^ Yska 2006, pp. 22.
^ Betts 1970, pp. 28.
^ Betts 1970, pp. 262.
^ Betts 1970, pp. 33.
^ Yska 2006, pp. 63.
^ "Municipal Corporations Acts Amendment Act 1875". University of Auckland. 21 October 1875. Retrieved 20 April 2013.
^ "The Election of Mayor". The New Zealand Times. Vol. XXIX, no. 4290. 19 December 1874. p. 3. Retrieved 17 March 2019.

References

Yska, Redmer (2006). Wellington: Biography of a City. Auckland: Reed Books. ISBN 9780790011172.
Betts, G. M. (1970). Betts on Wellington: A City and its Politics. Wellington: Reed. ISBN 0-589-00469-7.
The Birth of a City: Wellington 1840–1843 by A. H. Carman (1970, Wright & Carman, Wellington)
No Mean City by Stuart Perry (1969 booklet, Wellington City Council) includes a paragraph and a portrait or photo of each mayor, including Hunter & Guyton.