Urban legend: Sir Dove-Myer Robinson

Maker and role
John Edgar, Author
Production date
2012

Object detail

Accession number

PUB-2019-11

Maker

John Edgar

Description

"Robbie, Auckland's longest-serving mayor, was certainly a man with bold plans: a revolutionary waste treatment plant, a whole city united under a single authority, efficient city-wide public transport, a nuclear-free New Zealand. ... Mayor Robbie was a contradiction - a man who cared for his fellow citizens sometimes more than for his own family; an environmentalist who made his money as a capitalist manufacturer; and a trail-blazing green politician who advocated rapid rail but loved luxury cars. He became a remarkable figure, stroppily out of step with his political peers, who were often just as shocked by his private life - which included four wives and many girlfriends - as they were by his politics. ..." - back cover.

1. English childhood 2. Colonial kid 3. Shop-boy and salesman 4. Adele 5. Betty and Veda 6. Rags to riches 7. Money and marriage 8. Budding environmentalist 9. Saving the Waitemata Harbour 10. Victory over the polluters 11. Public enemy number one 12. Run for the mayoralty 13. Council feud 14. Urban reform 15. Auckland Regional Authority Bill 16. Robinson, reform and Holyoake 17. Annus horribilis 18. Comeback in 1968 19. Rapid transit: [Thomas H.] Pearce, [Robert] Muldoon and [Norman] Kirk 20. Resistance grows to Robinson's vision 21. Demise of rapid rail 22. Environmentalism at home and abroad 23. Political isolation 24. Reluctant retirement.

Media/Materials

Processed Material/Paper

Physical description

304 pages : photographs, illustrations (some colour) ; 23.5 cm

Credit line

John Edgar. 2012. Urban legend: Sir Dove-Myer Robinson, PUB-2019-11. Walsh Memorial Library, The Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT).