Keith Jacka Holyoake

Politician and farmer

• Born: February 11, 1904
• Birthplace: Scarborough (Mangamutu), New Zealand
• Died: December 8, 1983
• Place of death: Wellington, New Zealand

Also known as: Kiwi Keith

Significance: Keith Jacka Holyoake of the National Party was prime minister of New Zealand twice, for two months in 1957 and from 1960 to 1972. He served as governor general from 1977 to 1980, the first politician to ever hold the post.

Background

The third of seven children of Henry Victor Holyoake and Esther (Eves) Holyoake, Keith Jacka Holyoake was born on February 11, 1904, in Scarborough (also known as Mangamutu), New Zealand, where his parents owned a small general store. The family sold the store the next year and moved to Hastings, then Maharo, before settling in Omokoroa, near Tauranga, in 1908. After Holyoake’s father inherited his father’s farm, the family moved to Riwaka in 1914. There, they raised dairy cattle, apples, peaches, hops, and tobacco.

Holyoake attended small, rural schools, including the Brooklyn Primary School in Riwaka. He left school at twelve because the family was too poor to pay for secondary education. His mother, who had taught school before her marriage, tutored him, and he took correspondence lessons. He also increased his chores on the farm and soon helped his father, who was in poor health, manage it. He briefly struck out on his own and worked as a delivery boy at a store in Wellington.

Holyoake was very active in sports, especially rugby, tennis, and cycling, from his teens through his forties. He served as president of a local tennis club, president of the Golden Bay-Motueka Rugby Union, and vice president of the New Zealand Rugby Union. He also was a rugby referee for many years.

Agricultural Career

After his brief interlude working in Wellington, Holyoake returned to the family farm and his father made him part owner of it. He became full owner in the 1920s after his father sold him his share. Holyoake was active in the agricultural community and joined several farming associations, including the Nelson branch of the Farmers’ Union (now Federated Farmers) and New Zealand Tobacco Growers’ Federation. In 1926, he was a founding member of the Motueka Fruitgrowers’ Association.

Holyoake remained a farmer and active in farming groups throughout his life. He served as president of the Nelson branch of the Farmers’ Union from 1932 to 1941 and the acting dominion president of the Farmers’ Union in 1938. Around 1940, he sold his Motueka farm and purchased a sheep and cattle farm in Waitahora.

Political Career

Holyoake made his first run for a seat in Parliament as the Reform Party candidate for Motueka in the 1931 election. He lost to incumbent George Black, but after Black died the next year, Holyoake won the seat in a by-election that year, becoming, at twenty-eight, the youngest member of Parliament. In 1935, Holyoake helped form the National Party and became one of its leaders. He lost his seat in the 1938 election but returned to Parliament representing Pahiatua in 1943. There, he remained a spokesperson for agricultural interests. In 1946, he served as New Zealand’s delegate to the First World Conference of Farmers in London, England, which established the International Federation of Agricultural Production.

A rising star in the National Party, Holyoake was named deputy leader of the Opposition in 1947. Two years later, Prime Minister Sidney Holland added him to his cabinet as minister of agriculture, a portfolio he held through 1957. His achievements included negotiating new trade agreements with the United Kingdom, expanding farm mechanization, removing price controls, and pushing through the Rabbit Nuisance Act. From 1949 to 1950, he was the director of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and from 1949 to 1953, the minister of marketing. In 1954, he was appointed New Zealand’s first deputy prime minister and was appointed to the Privy Council.

Two months before the 1957 election, Holland stepped down due to illness, and Holyoake took his place as prime minister, serving from September 20 to December 12, 1957, as the National Party lost the 1957 election. He then served as the leader of the Opposition for three years before regaining the premiership on December 12, 1960.

During his second term as prime minister, Holyoake also served as minister of external affairs (later foreign affairs). His achievements included abolishing capital punishment, committing New Zealand troops to fight in the Vietnam War, and expanding foreign relations, particularly in Southeast Asia. He established a national ombudsman’s office to investigate citizen complaints against the government and removed political control of broadcasting. In part due to the UK entering the European Economic Community, his government diversified New Zealand’s trading partners and formed a limited free trade agreement with Australia. In 1963, he took New Zealand’s first step toward a nuclear-free New Zealand by banning the storage or testing of nuclear weapons in the country.

Holyoake stepped down on February 7, 1972, and was succeeded by his deputy prime minister, Jack Marshall. He remained active in party affairs and was named to the newly created position of minister of state by Robert Muldoon when the National Party returned to government following the 1975 election. In 1977, Muldoon controversially named Holyoake the governor general, the first politician ever appointed to the post. He served until 1980, when he retired. On December 8, 1983, he died in Wellington following a stroke.

Impact

One of New Zealand’s longest-serving prime ministers, Holyoake, along with Holland, led National governments from 1949 to 1972, with the exception of a three-year Labour government in the late 1950s. This provided great stability to New Zealand during the decades immediately following World War II and during the Cold War era. Holyoake strengthened New Zealand’s national identity and developed stronger diplomatic and trade relationships with countries other than the United Kingdom. A life-sized statue of Holyoake was erected in 1990 outside the State Services Commission building on Molesworth Street in Wellington in his honor.

Personal Life

Holyoake and Norma Janet Ingram married on September 24, 1934. They had five children: Roger, Peter, Diane, Lynley, and Keitha (Jennie).

Bibliography

Gustafson, Barry. Kiwi Keith: A Biography of Keith Holyoake. Auckland UP, 2008.

McLean, Gavin. “Keith Holyoake.” New Zealand History, New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 27 Nov. 2017, nzhistory.govt.nz/people/keith-holyoake. Accessed 6 Apr. 2020.

“Sir Keith Holyoake Dies after a Stroke.” The New York Times, 9 Dec. 1983, www.nytimes.com/1983/12/09/obituaries/sir-keith-holyoake-dies-after-a-stroke-new-zeland-leader.html. Accessed 6 Apr. 2020.

“Today in Masonic History: Keith Jacka Holyoake Is Born.” Masonry Today, www.masonrytoday.com/index.php?new‗month=2&new‗day=11&new‗year=2016. Accessed 6 Apr. 2020.

Wood, G. A. “Holyoake, Keith Jacka.” Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, 2000. Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/5h33/holyoake-keith-jacka. Accessed 6 Apr. 2020.