Dove-Myer Robinson

Sir Dove-Myer Robinson (15 June 1901 – 14 August 1989) was Mayor of Auckland City from 1959 to 1965 and from 1968 to 1980.

Holding office for 6,543 days in total (17 years, 10 months, and 30 days), his was the longest tenure of any holder of the office.

He was a colourful character and became affectionately known across New Zealand as "Robbie".

He was one of several Jewish mayors of Auckland, although he rejected Judaism as a teenager and became a lifelong atheist.

He has been described as a "slight, bespectacled man whose tiny stature was offset by a booming voice and massive ego".

Born Mayer Dove Robinson in Sheffield, England, he was the sixth of seven children of Ida Brown and Moss Robinson.

While his father described himself as a master jeweller, he actually sold trinkets and second-hand furniture, and the family was poor and often on the move.

Robinson's mother influenced his upbringing by transmitting the strict values her rabbi father had taught her.

His Jewish heritage ensured that he was often targeted by antisemitic violence in the schools he attended.

The family moved to New Zealand in 1914, where his father worked as a pawnbroker.

Dove-Myer, as he later called himself (ignoring his Robinson family name), found New Zealand agreeable and lacking in the intermittent persecutions he had previously faced.

Robinson began working as a travelling salesman, selling motorcycles.

In Gore he met Adelaide (Adele) Elizabeth Matthews, the first of his four wives and on 12 September 1924 the two married, having two daughters.

He established Robinson's Motor Cycle and Bicycle Depot in 1930, but the business struggled as a result of the Great Depression, expanding to include cars.

The pair divorced in 1932.

It was the first victory for an independent candidate in an Auckland City election since 1935.

Now as a council member he was appointed as a council representative on the Auckland Drainage Board, the body proposing the Browns Island plan, and opposed it from within.

He held the World 500cc Speedway title in 1936.

His racing injuries (and impaired eyesight) excused him from military service in World War II.

During and after the war he and Betty focused on creating their own company, Childswear Ltd, into a prosperous clothes manufacturing business.

He married Veda Alice Davis, a 17-year-old, on 7 December 1937.

The marriage only lasted a month and in 1940 they divorced.

Robinson entered politics in the late 1940s when he led the opposition to a sewage dumping scheme championed by Auckland Mayor Sir John Allum (the Browns Island plan) that would have discharged untreated effluent into Waitemata Harbour.

Robinson joined the Auckland and Suburban Drainage League, a group opposed to the idea of disposing Auckland's sewage and slaughterhouse waste into the harbour and intent on finding an alternative.

Robinson's first attempt saw him take a petition containing 43,000 signatures to Parliament to try to convince the government to block the plan, but was unsuccessful.

Allum dismissed Robinson labeling him as a "noisy crank" and disliked the challenge to his authority.

Graham Bush, an Auckland historian, later termed the clash between Allum and Robinson as one "between two men of steely character who ... deserve being ranked among the half-dozen greatest men in Auckland municipal history".

Robinson had begun living with Bettine (Betty) Williams, a seamstress, and on 15 March 1941 they married and had two daughters and one son.

He raced motorcycles as well as selling them and for a time he was a sidecar racing champion.

When a vacancy occurred on the Auckland City Council in 1952 Robinson stood as an independent candidate in the subsequent by-election.

He used the publicity he had gained in his fight against Browns Island to stand out from the crowd and won the election.

To try to break the deadlock, Robinson formed a new political party, the United Independents, and at the 1953 elections the new group won five seats (including Robinson) giving them the balance of power between the Citizens & Ratepayers and Labour Party tickets.

They also endorsed the candidacy for mayor of John Luxford, who defeated Allum.

With Allum removed from the council (and by extension the Drainage Board), Robinson assumed chairmanship of the Drainage Board.

There, he proposed and eventually realised a scheme to break down the sewage in oxidation ponds ('Robbie's ponds') near the Manukau Harbour.

Browns Island instead became a public reserve.

His success in the scheme earned Robinson a reputation as a visionary later on helped him gain the popularity to be elected Mayor of Auckland City.

Robinson had established a public profile during his lengthy political struggle against the Browns Island plan, but it took a toll on his private life.

His third marriage ended and he divorced Betty in 1959.

On 15 June that same year he married Thelma Thompson, an executive at Childswear Ltd, with whom he had one daughter.