Percy Dowse

Percy Dowse (4 December 1898 – 9 December 1970) was a New Zealand politician. He was mayor of Lower Hutt from 1950 to 1970.

Biography Early life He was born in Lancashire in 1898 and was educated at Wigan Technical College. His coal miner father James was killed in a mining accident when he was eight and his mother with three children got compensation of only £140; Percy thought that "things didn’t seem to be quite adding up" with that money his mother bought a small grocery shop down the road. In West Alton Percy was secretary of the Trades and Labour Council and Organising Secretary of the Independent Labour Party. He became a mines inspector. He married Mary Kirkman in 1922, and the voyage to New Zealand was their honeymoon (they had considered migrating to India instead). They had a son and daughter together. Soon after arriving Dowse gained employment with the New Zealand Railways Department at the Hutt Railway Workshops.

Dowse served in the Royal Air Force during World War II.

Political career Dowse was well advanced in his political thinking by the time he arrived in New Zealand and joined the Labour Party. He was a member of the campaign committee for Walter Nash in the Hutt electorate. He then became managing secretary of the Southern Cross, a daily Labour newspaper, for the entirety of its five year existence. As a member of the executive he moved for the expulsion of John A. Lee from the party.

He was president of the Lower Hutt branch of the Labour Party when he stood for the Lower Hutt Borough Council and the Power Board, and his wife Mary stood for the Wellington Hospital Board in 1935. He was a councillor from 1935 to 1938 when he stood only for the mayoralty, but was narrowly beaten by the incumbent Citizens' Association mayor Jack Andrews. At the following election in 1941 he stood for a council seat again, but was defeated (along with all other Labour candidates) after the infamous 'Nathan Incident' in nearby Wellington. He made a second attempt to win the mayoralty in 1944 but was again defeated by Andrews. He was then elected a Lower Hutt City Councillor again from 1947 to 1950.

On his third attempt he was elected Mayor of Lower Hutt in 1950, defeating the sitting mayor William Gregory. He was to be mayor for the next twenty years from 1950 to 1970. During his tenure, the Town Hall and civic centre (including the War Memorial Library and Little Theatre) and several local community centres were built. The Olympic swimming pool in Naenae as well as many parks and playgrounds were built. Many public works were completed in Dowse's mayoralty including motorway flyovers at Normandale and the Ewen Bridge. Dowse also forced through the controversial fluoridation of Lower Hutt's water system, a new drainage system in Pencarrow and approved the development of several new suburbs including Maungaraki and Stokes Valley.

Dowse was an incredibly hard worker, seldom arriving in his office after 8am or leaving before 5.30pm. He often attended an evening function afterwards, making his normal work day 12 hours or more.

Dowse was also a member of the Hutt Valley and Bays' Metropolitan Milk Board until its abolition and later from 1968 a member of the Hutt Valley and Bays' West Coast Milk Committee. From 1948 he was a member of the Hutt Valley Milk Treatment Corporation and chairman of it from 1960. He was the inaugural chairman of the New Zealand Milk Authorities Association from 1953 to 1955 and a member of the New Zealand Milk Board from 1953.

Recognition

Dowse Drive in the suburb of Maungaraki and The Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt are named for him and his wife. From 1950 Dowse had been a local body representative on the National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum board of trustees. In the 1965 New Year Honours, he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.