Richard John Seddon

Richard John Seddon (1845-1906), New Zealand politician and Liberal Party prime minister (1893-1906). Born in Eccleston, Lancashire, on June 22, 1845, Richard Seddon worked in iron foundries in England before emigrating to Australia in 1863 to work at the Bendigo goldfields in Victoria. He then moved to the Hokitika mines in the Westland of New Zealand (1866) and became an advocate for miners in goldfield disputes in 1869. Seddon’s prominence in local politics won him a seat in the House of Representatives (1879) and he became a minister in John Ballance’s Liberal ministry (1891), abolishing the subletting of government contracts for public works. When he succeeded Ballance as prime minister in 1893, he embarked on a course of progressive social and economic reforms enacting several important reform measures, and regulating the Bank of New Zealand. To control prices, he also introduced state coal mining (1901), fire insurance (1903), and house building (1905). Although his domestic policy laid the foundation for the establishment of the welfare state by Michael Savage in the 1930s, Seddon was no radical. The bill for women’s suffrage that he inherited from Ballance was opposed by his whole cabinet (although only two members of the House actually voted against it) and his foreign policy was imperialist and pro-British. He tried to incorporate Fiji into New Zealand, annexed the Cook Islands (1901), bought vast amounts of Maori land, opposed “Oriental” (Chinese) immigration, and sponsored preferential tariffs for trade with England (known as imperial preference). Seddon also sent more than 6000 New Zealand troops to fight in the Boer War and raised money for the war effort by public subscription. An assertive, almost dictatorial politician nicknamed “King Dick,” he assumed many cabinet positions. Seddon died at sea, on the way to Australia, shortly after his fifth consecutive national electoral victory.