Bob Semple
Honorific prefixThe Honourable
Order 121st Minister of Public Works
Term start 18 November 1942
Term end 113 December 1949
Prime minister 1Peter Fraser
Predecessor 1Tim Armstrong
Successor 1Stan Goosman
Term start 26 December 1935
Term end 221 January 1941
Prime minister 2Michael Joseph Savage
Peter Fraser
Predecessor 2John Bitchener
Successor 2Tim Armstrong
Order 314th Minister of Railways
Term start 312 December 1941
Term end 313 December 1949
Predecessor 3Dan Sullivan
Successor 3Stan Goosman
Prime minister 3Peter Fraser
Office 6Member of the New Zealand Parliament
for
(1928–1946)
Term start 614 November 1928
Term end 613 November 1954
Predecessor 6Thomas Forsyth
Successor 6Bill Fox
Office 77th President of the Labour Party
Term start 77 April 1926
Term end 712 April 1928
Leader 7Harry Holland
Vice president 7Jim Thorn (1926-7)
John Archer (1927-8)
Predecessor 7Tom Brindle
Successor 7John Archer
Constituency mp 8Wellington South
Parliament 8New Zealand
Term start 819 December 1918
Term end 817 December 1919
Predecessor 8Alfred Hindmarsh
Successor 8George Mitchell
Birth date21 October 1873
Birth placeSofala, New South Wales, Australia
Death date31 January 1955 (aged 81)
Death placeNew Plymouth, New Zealand
PartyLabour
SpouseMargaret Semple

Robert Semple (21 October 1873 – 31 January 1955) was a union leader and later Minister of Public Works for the first Labour Government of New Zealand. He is also known for creating the Bob Semple tank.

Early life

Semple was born in Sofala, New South Wales, Australia. He started working at an early age as a gold miner in Australia. In 1903 he was involved in a miner's strike in Victoria, Australia. The strike was defeated and Semple ended up being blacklisted.[1]

To avoid the blacklist Semple moved to the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. By 1907 he was president of the Runanga Miner's Union and earned himself nickname 'Fighting Bob Semple'.

He was jailed in 1913 for supporting the general strike and again in 1916 after fighting conscription for overseas service during World War I. Semple served as the President of the Labour Party from 1926 to 1928.[2]

Semple was a member of the Wellington City Council for a decade between 1925 and 1935. In 1935 he unsuccessfully stood for Mayor of Wellington, coming runner-up to Thomas Hislop.[3] His wife Margaret was also a Wellington City Councillor from 1938 to 1941.[4]

Parliamentary career

Semple was elected to the seat of Wellington South Parliament for Labour in a 1918 by-election, but lost the seat in the 1919 general election. In 1928 he won the Wellington East seat, and held it until 1946, when it was renamed Miramar. He then held Miramar until 1954, when he retired.[5]

In 1935, he was awarded the King George V Silver Jubilee Medal.[6] Semple was a prolific user of "unparliamentary language" during his time as an MP, and was fond of insulting colleagues by calling or comparing them to Australian animals such as kookaburras, kangaroos and dingoes.[7]

During his term in Parliament, Semple held many important infrastructure portfolios, such as Minister of Public Works (1935–1941, 1942–1943) and Minister of Railways (1941–1949).[8] Semple was seen by many as the public face of the first Labour government's infrastructure investment. He reshaped the Public Works Department by resuming its original function as the development arm of the government by phasing out its focus on relief work from the Great Depression.[1]

During World War II he had built the 'Bob Semple tank', made from corrugated iron and a tractor base. The tank had numerous design flaws and other practical problems and was never put into production. In later life, he became an ardent anti-communist.[1] In 1953, Semple was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal.[9] He did not seek re-election in the 1954 election, and died in New Plymouth in January 1955.

Notes

  1. ^
  2. ^ Paul, J.T. (1946). Humanism in Politics: New Zealand Labour Party in Retrospect. Wellington, NZ: New Zealand Worker Printing and Publishing. p. 192.
  3. ^ "Polling in Wellington". The New Zealand Herald. Vol. LXXII, no. 22105. 10 May 1935. p. 13. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  4. ^ Wellington: Biography of a city by Redmer Yska (Reed, Auckland, 2006) page 159 ISBN 0-7900-1117-4
  5. ^ Wilson 1985, p. 233.
  6. ^ "Official jubilee medals". The Evening Post. 6 May 1935. p. 4. Retrieved 30 August 2013.
  7. ^ Dooney, Laura (7 December 2016). "PhD research highlights unparliamentary language in New Zealand". Stuff. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  8. ^ Wilson 1985, pp. 82f.
  9. ^ Taylor, Alister & Coddington, Deborah (1994). Honoured by the Queen – New Zealand. Auckland: New Zealand Who's Who Aotearoa. p. 420. ISBN 0-908578-34-2.

References

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