Why Bother Trying to Write a Slightly Different Kind of Political Biography? A Portrait of Sir John McKenzie (1838-1901)

Abstract

Sir John McKenzie (1838-1901) was a highly influential Minister of Lands from 1891 to 1900 who promulgated the cause of the small settler landholder and initiated legislation to break up the larger estates. In his youth he had witnessed the misery caused by the Highland landlords evicting their tenants, before his emigration to Dunedin in 1860. In this article Tom Brooking gives a preview of his forthcoming somewhat unusual political biography.