Peter Tait (mayor)

Sir Peter Tait KBE (5 September 1915 – 31 January 1996) was a New Zealand National Party Member of Parliament, mayor of Napier, small businessman and opponent of New Zealand's Homosexual Law Reform Act.

Early life
Five fishermen sitting by their nets on a beach, with a young boy, Peter Tait.

Tait was born on 5 September 1915, in Wellington's Island Bay suburb. His family were Scottish immigrants, originally from the Shetland Islands. His father Jack and his uncles Peter and Ross belonged to the best known Shetland fishing families in Island Bay.[1] Through his early life, Tait suffered from tuberculosis, which meant that he was unable to play an active role in New Zealand's Second World War effort, nor could he become a Baptist minister.

He moved from Waipukurau, a rural community, to the East Coast of the North Island, and ultimately settled in Napier. Once established there, he opened a shoe store, which came to have branches in Waipukurau, Napier, Hastings and Dannevirke.

Political career

Member of Parliament
New Zealand Parliament
Years Term Electorate Party
1951–1954 30th Napier National

Tait served as the National Member of Parliament for Napier (1951–1954).[2] In 1953, he was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal.[3]

Mayor of Napier

Two years after leaving Parliament, he became Mayor of Napier for the next eighteen years (1956–1974).[4]

Later life and death

Tait was a Baptist, who helped to organise the Coalition of Concerned Citizens in the mid-eighties, and fought against homosexual law reform. Ultimately, though, the Homosexual Law Reform Act passed its final reading.

Tait then ran foul of his former colleagues in the 'Gang of Twenty' affair in 1989 when the contributory mortgage company he chaired, AdvisorCorp, found itself the target of attacks from National Party leader Jim Bolger. Bolger would later publicly apologise to Tait, but two of the principals in the company were successfully prosecuted and AdvisorCorp collapsed.

He funded the Tait Fountain in Napier, which commemorates Victory in Europe Day and was dedicated on 9 May 1995 on the 50th anniversary of the end of that war.[4]

Tait was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1967 New Year Honours[5] and promoted to Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1975 New Year Honours.[6] He died in 1996.

References
  1. "The Shetland Islanders". Wellington Southern Bays Historical Society Inc. Archived from the original on 24 July 2011. Retrieved 6 November 2010.
  2. Wilson, James Oakley (1985) [First ed. published 1913]. New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1984 (4th ed.). Wellington: V.R. Ward, Govt. Printer. OCLC 154283103.
  3. "Coronation Medal" (PDF). Supplement to the New Zealand Gazette. No. 37. 3 July 1953. pp. 1021–1035. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  4. "Tait Fountain". Napier City Council. Archived from the original on 23 February 2013. Retrieved 6 November 2010.
  5. London Gazette (supplement), No. 44212, 30 December 1966. Retrieved 11 March 2013.
  6. "No. 46446". The London Gazette (3rd supplement). 1 January 1975. p. 38.
  • Obituary: Peter Tait from Evening Post (Wellington) 2 October 1996
  • Laurie Guy: Worlds in Collision: The Gay Law Reform Debate in New Zealand: 1960-1985 Wellington: Victoria University Press: (2002) ISBN 0-86473-438-7
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