ORMOND, JOHN DAVIES (1832-1917) was born at Wallingford, Berkshire, the son of Captain F. F. Ormond, R.N. Educated at Plymouth, he came to New Zealand at the age of 16 in the Ralph Bernal with E. J. Eyre (lieutenant-governor of New Munster), who became his brother-in-law.

Appointed private secretary to the lieutenant-governor and clerk to the executive (5 Dec 1849), he resigned in 1852 to take up land at Waipukurau, Hawkes Bay, when there were only about a score of settlers in that part of Wellington province. He was one of a group who some time later leased and purchased the Heretaunga plains. Ormond was a strong advocate of separation from Wellington, and when this was effected he was elected to the Provincial Council of Hawkes Bay, in which he sat continuously until the abolition (for Waipukurau 1859-61; Porangahau 1862-75; Hastings 1875-76). He was speaker (1859-62); provincial treasurer and a member of the executive (1861-67); and acted in 1863, 1865, 1868 and 1869 as deputy for the Superintendent (McLean), whose alter ego he became in both the provincial and the Colonial sphere.

When McLean resigned the superintendency (1869) to accept a portfolio, Ormond was elected as his successor and he retained that office until the abolition. Following McLean, too, he acted as Agent for the General Government on the East Coast in the later days of the Maori war, directing the operations against Te Kooti with considerable freedom and authority. He was present at the engagement at Omarunui (1866). In Parliament he represented Clive (1861-81) and Napier (1884-90). In 1871 he joined the Fox ministry as Minister of Public Works. He took the same portfolio under Waterhouse, but relinquished it in a few weeks (Oct 1872). In the Atkinson ministry of 1876 he was Secretary for Lands and Immigration, and after the reconstruction had charge of the Post Office and Public Works, retiring from the ministry in Oct 1877. In 1879 W. A. Murray tried to induce him to form a Conservative party.

Called to the Legislative Council in 1891, he remained a member of that body until his death (on 6 Oct 1917). Gisborne appraises Ormond as a man of great mental power, cool, observant, cautious and resolute; a deep thinker but lacking in sympathy. He was indifferent to office and dropped out at the first opportunity to devote himself to the affairs of his own district. On behalf of the General Government he arranged the immigration of Scandinavians, and personally settled them in the Seventy Mile Bush. He obtained Sir John Coode's report on Napier harbour, was on the harbour board from the first (1875) and chairman in 1888; was chairman of the education board, the hospital board and the Hawkes Bay county council and the Hawkes Bay rivers board; one of the founders of the Napier High Schools (and chairman of the board), a promoter of the A. and P. society (and president in 1866).

Ormond had properties at Wallingford, Karamu, Woodville and Mahia, and bred the best strains of draught horses, Lincoln and Border Leicester sheep and poultry. He had also a fine thoroughbred racing stud, and won most of the classic races in New Zealand with horses bred by himself. Ormond married (1859) Miss Richardson.

Hawkes Bay P.C. Proc. and Gaz.; Cycl. N.Z., i (p); vi (p); N.Z.P.D., 8 Oct 1917; Gisborne (p); Saunders; Reeves; N.Z. Spectator, 21 Feb 1852; Saturday Advertiser, 21 Aug 1882; Daily Telegraph (Napier), 16 Oct 1925; N.Z. Graphic, 16 Sep 1893 (p); Hawkes Bay Herald, 8 Oct 1917. Portrait: Parliament House.

Reference: Volume 2, page 71

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