Sir Edwin Mitchelson (7 April 1846 – 11 April 1934) was a New Zealand politician and timber merchant.
Member of Parliament
Mitchelson was born in
Auckland in a cottage on Queen Street in the mid 1840s.
He developed business interests in timber and
kauri gum, shipbuilding, and horse racing and breeding.
He was a cabinet minister from 1883 to 1884 and 1887 to 1880 as Minister of Public Works. From 1887 to 1891 he was Minister of Māori Affairs (called Native Affairs), and from 1889 to 1891 he was Minister of Telegraphs and Postmaster-General.
He represented the Marsden electorate from to 1887, then Eden from to 1896, when he was defeated (for the City of Auckland electorate).
Later years
Mitchelson was the Mayor of Auckland City from 1903 to 1905,
chairman of the Remuera Road Board,
and a member of the Legislative Council from 1920 until his death on 11 April 1934. He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in the 1921 King's Birthday Honours.
He was buried at
Purewa Cemetery in the Auckland suburb of Meadowbank.
Personal life
Mitchelson had a wooden mansion built at
Muriwai around the year 1902, which he named Oaia, named after
Oaia Island.
In 1935, Arthur William Baden Powell named the fossil species
Bathytoma mitchelsoni in honour of Mitchelson, as the holotype of the species had been found in deposits on Mitchelson's Muriwai property.
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