The Mayor of Thames officiated over the Thames Borough of New Zealand, which was administered by the Thames Borough Council. The office existed from 1874 until 1975, when Thames Borough and Coromandel County were amalgamated to form Thames-Coromandel District. There were 24 holders of the office.
The Thames Gold Rush in the late 1860s and the early 1870s made Thames known as a locality, and the township developed from diggers settling in the area. The area was controlled by the Auckland Provincial Council. In late 1871, a public meeting in Grahamstown (one of the two historic towns that now forms Thames) resolved: [1]
That in the opinion of the meeting it is desirable that a Municipal Corporation should be established for the Thames.
This resulted in the forming of a Thames Municipality Committee in early 1872. The Borough of Thames was gazetted in November 1873. The first Borough Council was elected in March 1874. As was practice at the time, the councillors voted one of themselves to be the mayor. William Davies was the only person proposed and voted into the role unanimously in April 1874. [1]
After having served as mayor for a year, James McAndrew was re-elected unopposed in 1890. [2]
Henry Greenslade resigned from the mayoralty on 31 May 1900, as he had bought a farm in Ōhaupō in the Waipa District. [3] [4] Francis Trembath succeeded him and was elected unopposed. [5]
In total, there were 24 Mayors of Thames Borough. [6] The last mayor was Wallace (Wally) Brunton, who served from 1959 until 1975. [7] In 1975, Thames Borough amalgamated with Coromandel County, out of which Thames-Coromandel District arose. [1] Hence, the role was succeeded by that of the Mayor of Thames-Coromandel.
Four mayors were also represented in Parliament:
McGowan was later appointed to the New Zealand Legislative Council. [12] William McCullough was also an MLC. [12]
Mayors of Thames were: [6]
| Name | Term | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | William Davies | 1874–1875 |
| 2 | J.E. MacDonald | 1875–1876 |
| 3 | James Kilgour | 1877–1878 |
| 4 | William McCullough [13] | 1878–1879 |
| 5 | Louis Ehrenfried [14] | 1879–1880 |
| 6 | William Wilkinson | 1880–1882 |
| 7 | William Fraser [15] | 1882–1887 |
| 8 | Alexander Brodie | 1887–1888 |
| 9 | William Carpenter | 1888–1889 |
| 10 | James McGowan [16] | 1889 |
| 11 | James McAndrew | 1889–1891 |
| 12 | James Renshaw | 1891–1892 |
| James McGowan (second period) [16] | 1892–1893 | |
| 13 | Thomas Radford | 1893–1897 |
| 14 | William Scott | 1897–1898 |
| 15 | Henry Greenslade [17] | 1898–1900 |
| 16 | Francis Trembath | 1900–1905 |
| 17 | Archibald Burns | 1905–1909 |
| 18 | Frank Henry Claxton | 1909–1910 |
| 19 | Henry Lowe | 1910–1919 |
| 20 | Ernest Napier Miller | 1919–1923 |
| 21 | Thomas William Rhodes [18] | 1923–1927 |
| 22 | William Bongard | 1927–1931 |
| 23 | Sidney Ensor | 1931–1959 |
| 24 | Wallace Brunton [7] | 1959–1975 |
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