John Sheehan

John Sheehan (5 July 1844 – 12 June 1885) was a 19th-century New Zealand politician. He was the first New Zealand-born Member of Parliament elected by a general electorate (rather than a Māori electorate) and he was the first New Zealand-born person to hold cabinet rank.

Biography Early life and career Sheehan was born in Auckland in 1844. He was educated at St Peter's School under the guidance of his teacher, Richard O'Sullivan and where he knew another later Cabinet Minister, Joseph Tole.

Political career

He was the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Māori Affairs from 1877 to 1879. He represented several North Island electorates: Rodney from to 1879, then Thames from to 1884, when he was defeated (for Napier by John Davies Ormond). He then represented Tauranga from a by-election on 22 May until he died shortly after on 12 June.

A fluent Māori speaker and a lawyer, he is noted for his efforts with the Repudiation Movement in the 1870s to solve land issues on behalf of Hawkes Bay Māori chiefs who claimed large European land holders, such as Donald McLean, had acquired land improperly. The Repudiation Movement failed but Sheehan gained a positive reputation with Māori leaders. In 1877 he became Native Minister in the Grey Government. He tried to negotiate land deals in Taranaki with iwi leaders and, in respect of the King Country, with King Tawhaio, but failed. However, during these meetings he discovered that Rewi Maniapoto wanted to sell land and negotiated land sales to Europeans in the King Country that the government hoped would speed up assimilation. Sheehan negotiated unsuccessfully with Te Whiti whose base of Parihaka was destroyed by the Armed Constabulary in November 1881 after Sheehan had ceased to hold ministerial office (in 1879). In 1890, his widow, Lucy Caroline Sheehan, married Herbert Samuel Wardell, previously a resident magistrate of Wellington. She was given away by John Nathaniel Wilson.