Frank Langstone

The Honourable Frank Langstone
25th Minister of Native Affairs
In office 1 April 1940 – 21 December 1942
Prime Minister	Peter Fraser
Preceded by	Michael Joseph Savage
Succeeded by	Rex Mason
11th President of the Labour Party
In office 1933–1934
Vice President	Clyde Carr
Leader	Michael Joseph Savage
Preceded by	Rex Mason
Succeeded by	Tim Armstrong
Personal details
Born	1881 Bulls, New Zealand
Died	15 June 1969 (aged 88) New Zealand
Political party	Labour (1916–1949)
Other political affiliations	Social Credit (1957-1969)

Frank Langstone (1881 – 15 June 1969) was a New Zealand Member of Parliament, Cabinet Minister and High Commissioner to Canada.

Early life

Langstone was born in Bulls in 1881.^[1] He was a shearer and was involved in the Shearers' Union in the King Country. Later, he was the proprietor of a railway restaurant in Taumarunui, and a fish-and-chip shop.^[2][1] He was involved with setting up the left-wing Maoriland Worker in 1910.

Political career

Langstone first contested the Waimarino electorate in the 1919 election, but was beaten by the incumbent, Robert William Smith of the Liberal Party.^[3][4] Langstone and Smith contested Waimarino at the 1922 election and this time, Langstone was successful. He held the electorate until 1925 and again from 1928 to 1946.^[5] He then held the Roskill electorate from 1946 to 1949.^[5] He was Minister of Lands (1935–1942), Commissioner of State Forests (1935–1942), Minister of External Affairs (1940–1942),^[6] Native Minister (1940–1942), and Minister for the Cook Islands (1940–1942).^[7] In 1942 he became High Commissioner to Canada.^[1] Langstone was President of the New Zealand Labour Party from 1933 to 1934.^[1] In 1935, he was awarded the King George V Silver Jubilee Medal.^[8]

He was described as "a cheerful, shortish extrovert with a better brain than most people thought he had". As he was deaf, he was allowed to listen to debates in the chamber on a small radio with headphones. When a dull back-bencher was on, he was known to tune into livelier commercial stations, when he would beat time to the music with his hands.^[2]

In 1949 Langstone resigned from the Labour Party over the issue of peacetime conscription.^[1] Later that year he stood in the Roskill electorate as an Independent but was defeated; coming third with 1097 votes after John Rae (National, 7372 votes) and James Freeman (Labour, 5957 votes). In 1957 and 1960 he stood for Social Credit in Roskill.^[1] At the Riccarton by-election in 1956 he made several speeches in support of the Social Credit candidate Wilfrid Owen.^[9]

Death

Langstone died on 15 June 1969, and his ashes were buried at Purewa Cemetery, Auckland.^[10]

Further reading

• Hobbs, Leslie (1967). The Thirty-Year Wonders. Christchurch: Whitcombe and Tombs.
• The 1949 General Election by S.E. Fraser (1967, MA Thesis-University of Otago, Dunedin)
• The Last Years of the First Labour Government 1945-1949 by R. McLennan (1963, MA Thesis-University of Auckland, Auckland)
• The Expulsion of John A. Lee and its Effects on the Development of the Labour Party by B.S. Taylor (1970, MA Thesis-University of Canterbury, Christchurch)

Notes

References

• Gustafson, Barry (1980). Labour's path to political independence: The Origins and Establishment of the New Zealand Labour Party, 1900–19. Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press. ISBN 0-19-647986-X.
• Wilson, James Oakley (1985) [First published in 1913]. New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1984 (4th ed.). Wellington: V.R. Ward, Govt. Printer. OCLC 154283103.