John Henry Menzies

John Henry Menzies (1839–1919) was a New Zealand woodcarver, cabinet maker, farmer and artist.

Menzies was born in the north-west of England in 1839, the son of a cotton merchant. He grew up in the village of Ringway, near Manchester where his father worked. After being employed for a short time at his uncle's maritime insurance business, he decided to become a farmer and emigrated to New Zealand in 1860. Menzies owned three farms in succession in Southland, before moving to a bay (now known as Menzies Bay) on Banks Peninsula next to Little Akaloa with his family in 1877.

The first published record of Menzies's carving is in the Akaroa Mail of 1890, when a chiffonier representing a miniature Māori pātaka (storage house) is mentioned. Menzies carved several of these cabinets, Gothic Revival in form but decorated with motifs from a range of different Māori buildings. The house Rehutai in Menzies Bay, built for his son in 1894–1895, was a simple weatherboard dwelling with corrugated iron roof from the outside, but its interior referenced a traditional meeting house (whare whakairo): a ridge beam and rafters decorated with kōwhaiwhai, reeded wall panels, and pilasters with carved tiki where the pou would be in a meeting house. Traditional Māōri proverbs (whakataukī) in Gothic lettering decorated the hall. Both Rehutai and St Luke's were Category 1 buildings on the Heritage New Zealand List.