Nash Street

This cul-de-sac in Marfell was named after former New Zealand Prime Minister Sir Walter Nash.

Walter Nash was born in Kidderminster, England, in 1882. He married Lottie Eaton in 1906 and the couple, now with a young son, immigrated to New Zealand in 1909.

The family arrived in Wellington, where they settled and two more sons were born. A committed Christian Socialist, Nash joined the recently formed New Zealand Labour Party. However, the need to support his family meant that his political aspirations would have to wait until later.

While working as a commercial traveller, he struck up a friendship with Stratford tailor Bill Besley. In 1916, Nash and Besley established Modern Tailors Ltd., a co-operative tailoring company and the family moved to New Plymouth.

The company hoped to provide customers with good-quality suits at a reasonable price. Despite their sound ideals, experience and hard work, the company struggled. Before Nash left the company and New Plymouth in 1920, he established a local branch of the Labour Party. In 1919, he also stood unsuccessfully for the New Plymouth Borough Council, although he was the top polling Labour candidate.

Back in Wellington, Nash embarked on what was to be a long and distinguished political career. He was elected national secretary of the Labour Party in 1922, and in 1929 was elected to Parliament as the member for Hutt in a by-election. As finance minister during the first Labour Government and through World War Two, Nash guided the economic recovery programme and then directed the Government's wartime controls.

Following the death of Peter Fraser in 1950, Nash was elected Labour leader. In 1957, at the age of 75, Walter Nash became New Zealand's oldest incoming prime minister.

The so called "Nordmeyer Black Budget" of 1958, which raised income tax and taxes on alcohol and cigarettes, was largely responsible for the Government lasting only one term. In early 1963, under pressure from the party's hierarchy, Walter Nash relinquished his leadership.

Nash received a knighthood in 1965 and stayed on as a Member of Parliament until his death in 1968, aged 86.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.