| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Peter David Aitchison |
| Spouse(s) | Sylvia Dawn Aitchison |
| Sport | |
| Sport | Rowing |
| Club | Union Boat Club, Whanganui |
Peter David Aitchison is a former New Zealand rower and manufacturer of farming equipment.
Rowing, sometimes referred to as crew in the United States, is a sport whose origins reach back to Ancient Egyptian times. It involves propelling a boat on water using oars. By pushing against the water with an oar, a force is generated to move the boat. The sport can be either recreational for enjoyment or fitness, or competitive, when athletes race against each other in boats. There are a number of different boat classes in which athletes compete, ranging from an individual shell to an eight-person shell with a coxswain.
A member of the Union Boat Club in Whanganui, Aitchison was a member of the victorious Union crew—along with Donald Gemmell, Frank Crotty, Graeme Moran and Richard Tuffin (coxswain)—that won the coxed fours title at the New Zealand national rowing championships in 1958. The same crew went on to represent New Zealand at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, finishing fourth. [1] [2] [3]
Whanganui, also spelled Wanganui, is a city on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. The Whanganui River, New Zealand's longest navigable waterway, runs from Mount Tongariro to the sea. Whanganui is part of the Manawatu-Wanganui region.
Donald Leslie Gemmell is a New Zealand rower.
Francis Patrick Crotty was a New Zealand rower and industrial chemist.
Aitchison went on to have a successful career as a manufacturer, importer and exporter of farming equipment, founding Aitchison Industries based in Whanganui. The company produces and exports seed drills, cultivators, fertiliser spreaders and other farming equipment around the world. [4] [5] [6] [7]
A seed drill is a device that sows the seeds for crops by positioning them in the soil and burying them to a specific depth. This ensures that seeds will be distributed evenly.
A cultivator is any of several types of farm implement used for secondary tillage. One sense of the name refers to frames with teeth that pierce the soil as they are dragged through it linearly. Another sense refers to machines that use rotary motion of disks or teeth to accomplish a similar result. The rotary tiller is a principal example.
In 2001, Aitchison and his wife, Sylvia, retired to the Wellington suburb of Roseneath. In 2015, the couple made national headlines after their neighbour built a four-metre high fence blocking their view of Wellington harbour. After a legal battle, the Environment Court ordered the fence be removed in January 2016. [8] [9]
Wellington is the capital and second most populous urban area of New Zealand, with 418,500 residents. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the major population centre of the southern North Island, and is the administrative centre of the Wellington Region, which also includes the Kapiti Coast and the Wairarapa. It is the world's southernmost capital of a sovereign state. Wellington features a temperate maritime climate, and is the world's windiest city by average wind speed.
Roseneath is a suburb of Wellington, New Zealand, located east of Oriental Bay and north of Hataitai. A peninsula it is named after Roseneath or Rossneveth peninsula on Scotland's River Clyde and has no association with roses.
The Environment Court of New Zealand is a specialist court for plans, resource consents and environmental issues. It mainly deals with issues arising under the Resource Management Act, meaning that it covers a wide range of potential future effects of planning applications, which can include such areas as traffic congestion, noise/pollution emissions and social and commercial consequences, rather than just the 'ecological' aspects that could be implied by the 'environmental' term.
