The Mervyn Kemp Oral History

Introduction

Ernest Mervyn Hall Kemp was Mayor of the Tawa Borough Council for 28 years making him one of the longest serving mayors in New Zealand's history. During that time he played an instrumental role in helping Tawa develop from a semi-rural community to a vibrant suburban township.

Tawa Flat 1932, Source ATL. Ref : PAColl-7796-53

Born in Australia in 1912, Mervyn Kemp came to New Zealand in 1938 on a working holiday as a trainee accountant. He joined the New Zealand Army at the start of the Second World War where he received a commission and spent the next two years training recruits before seeing combat himself in the Italian campaign. He returned to Wellington after the conflict only to face the severe housing shortage that confronted many returning-servicemen. After spending some time living in a run-down flat in Mt Cook, he moved out to what was then known as 'Tawa Flat' where he purchased his first home using a special low-interest loan which was being offered to returned soldiers.

At the time Tawa was a small semi-rural community of fewer than 500 people. Services were limited to a post office, a primary school and a small selection of shops. There was no functioning sewerage system with households having to rely on long-drop toilets or septic tanks.  The only available drinking water for most residents was rainwater which was collected from the roofs of their houses and piped into a holding tank. Things began to change in 1951 when the Tawa Town District was created as a separate ward within the Makara County Council. Two years later Tawa achieved full municipal independence with the creation of the Tawa Borough Council 1953.

Tawa, 1947, Source ATL Ref : PAColl-8163-40

Mervyn Kemp developed a passion for community affairs and was voted onto the new town board, and then onto the borough council following its creation. He was elected mayor of the borough in 1955 and was re-elected at every local-body election until his retirement in 1983. From the beginning he had a vision to transform Tawa into a desirable, family-friendly satellite town of Wellington. He established a programme of road building, sewerage & water reticulation, the construction of community facilities and the sub-division of land to encourage property development. His drive and enthusiasm for the area played a large part in Tawa becoming what it is today yet for most of the 32 years he was involved in Tawa's local government, he refused to accept a salary.

As well as his mayoral duties, he served for 25 years on the NZ Municipal Association Executive and on the Local Authorities Loans Board. He was also on the Board of Health, the Wellington District Roads Board, the Porirua Fire Board and the Wellington Regional Council which he chaired for six years. He also served more than 30 years as a member of the Wellington Free Ambulance Board.

For his services to the community he was awarded a CBE which was followed a MBE. Locally he was honoured with the naming of Tawa's public library in 1974 and the institution continues to be known by this to the present day.

Mervyn Kemp died on the 24th January 2003, aged 90.

About the recordings
The impetus for this original oral history project came from members of the Tawa Ratepayers and Progressive Association who recognised the story of Mervyn Kemp's extrodinary contribution to Tawa needed to be recorded while he was still alive. The project was organised by Con Coffey and the resulting tapes were published by the Historical Branch of the Department of Internal Affairs (now the Ministry of Culture and Heritage). The interviewer was the historian David Young who also wrote the original abstractions which accompany each interview session. The recordings were made over several days in late September 1995 by which time Kemp was living in a retirement home. It should be noted that he was 82 years old at the time and while he was experiencing some short-term memory loss, his early memories of Tawa and his time as Mayor remained very vivid.

Wellington City Libraries wishes to thanks and acknowledge the Tawa Ratepayers and Progressive Association and the Ministry of Culture and Heritage who kindly gave their permission to allow us to digitise the original analogue cassette tapes that form the Mervyn Kemp Oral History archive and to make them available online. 

Tawa, 2008 from a similar viewpoint as the earlier images.

The house bottom left as seen in the earlier photographs was rotated clockwise for road widening purposes. Photograph by G J Toth.