Jack Acland

Jack Acland (1956)

Sir Hugh John "Jack" Dyke Acland KBE (born January 17, 1904 in Christchurch , † January 26, 1981 in Mount Peel , New Zealand ) was a New Zealand farmer and politician of the New Zealand National Party , who between 1942 and 1946 was a member of the House of Representatives as well from 1946 to 1972 chairman of the New Zealand Wool Board .

Life

Origin, farmer and local politician

Acland was the eldest son of Doctor Hugh Thomas Dyke Acland , who was knighted bachelor in 1933 for his medical merits . His grandfather, John Barton Arundel Acland, settled in Canterbury in 1855 and together with Charles Tripp founded the region's first highland sheep farm in Mount Peel. His great-grandfather was the British politician Thomas Dyke Acland , who had represented the constituencies of Devon and North Devon in the House of Commons for several years and became a baronet in 1794 .

After attending Christ's College there, he worked on various properties in Northland and Canterbury and as a salesman in Addington . After a two-year working stay in Australia , he and his brother Colin Acland took over the management of the family company in Mount Peel before becoming sole managing director in 1933. On June 12, 1935, he married in Waipukurau Katherine Wilder Ormond, whose grandfather John Davies Ormond was an intermittent member of the House of Representatives for 26 years, and whose brother John Ormond had run unsuccessfully for a seat in the House of Representatives twice. The marriage resulted in three sons and three daughters.

To strengthen the property, he leased around 40,000 acres in 1938 and reduced the property to just 17,200 acres. This was followed by the destruction of gorse and undergrowth as well as the construction of roads and the creation of about 1000 acres of pasture area. In the following years the livestock grew and the intensification of the breeding so that the company flourished.

In addition to his professional career, Acland, who was also a lay preacher of the Anglican Church , began his political involvement in local politics in the 1930s , between 1934 and 1942 as a member of the council of what was then Geraldine County and from 1940 to 1959 as a member of the advisory board for hospitals in South Canterbury.

Member of the House of Representatives

In the 1942 elections, Acland was elected as a candidate for the New Zealand National Party in the Temuka constituency to be a member of the House of Representatives. In parliament he took a largely neutral, liberal position and was particularly committed to matters relating to the South Island and called for greater autonomy for local bodies. First and foremost, he advocated an "end to the psychological and economic causes of the low birth rate" ('to remove the psychological and economic causes of the low birth-rate'). He also called for lower taxes for families with low incomes, subsidized help for mothers and general family support, which earned him support from members of the New Zealand Labor Party (NZLP), but not his own party.

After his constituency was dissolved for the parliamentary elections in 1946, he was offered the more distant constituency of Timaru . However, he suffered a narrow electoral defeat and thus left the House of Representatives. He then resigned from the National Party and justified his resignation by saying that “they obviously don't want him and I couldn't say that I am on eye level with them” ('they obviously did not want me and I can't say that I see eye to eye with them ').

Chairman of the Committee on Wool

The International Wool Secretariat's (IWS) quality mark, introduced to protect Australian, New Zealand and South African wool

In 1947 Acland was elected to represent the breeders in the 1944 New Zealand Wool Board . In 1957 he was first vice-chairman and finally in 1960 chairman. Wool production was facing incipient competition from synthetic fibers at the time , and Acland led the cross-industry response. Sheep farmers and wool producers accepted increasing spending on advertising and research, which in 1961 led to the establishment of the Wool Research Organization of New Zealand . The Wool Committee sent young scientists abroad to train, provided technical assistance to mills that processed New Zealand sheep's wool , and issued freight agreements.

As a member of the International Wool Secretariat , which included the New Zealand Wool Board , the Australian Wool Board and the South African Wool Board , Acland campaigned for a fair share of the promotion and product development for New Zealand wool. At the same time he attended in this capacity sheep farmers in other countries and met with trade union functionaries .

In the 1960s, there was an improvement in the areas of wool packaging and shipping. At the same time, the research led to scientific measurements and sales of samples of wool. Ultimately, the wool committee proposed the establishment of a company for branded wool, which was supported by the breeders until 1972, when the authority issued a recommendation that the company should acquire the entire production. Acland did not support this recommendation for personal reasons, but saw it as necessary to preserve traditional family farms. However, the breeders' resistance was directed against this, which ultimately led to the abandonment of this recommendation.

Acland, who was made Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in 1968 and since then has had the suffix "Sir", resigned from the chairmanship of the wool committee in 1972 for health reasons, and in 1973 did not run again for the Board of the committee.

One of his sons, John Acland, later became chairman of the New Zealand Meat Producers' Board , another organization promoting New Zealand's agriculture.

Web links

• Biography in Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand