Name Arthur Carman | Died November 28, 1982 | |
Arthur Herbert Carman (2 August 1902 – 28 November 1982) was a New Zealand sports journalist and writer, bookseller, publisher, pacifist, local politician, and local historian.
He was born and died in Wellington, New Zealand. He was born in Paparangi, Johnsonville, and lived in Tawa (originally called Tawa Flat). He was a bookseller and publisher (as Wright and Carman); his Lambton Quay bookshop was a landmark for thirty years. Arthur Carman Street in Paparangi is named after him.
He was on several local bodies: the Wellington Hospital Board, the Tawa Borough Council and the Hutt Valley Power and Gas Board. He stood unsuccessfully as an independent for the Wellington City Council in 1941 and 1944.
He published sports books as Arthur Carman (The New Zealand Rugby Almanack, The New Zealand Cricket Almanack; both annuals) and local history books as A. H. Carman or Arthur H. Carman. These included The Birth of a City: Wellington 1840-1843 and Tawa Flat and the Old Porirua Road, which went into three editions (1956, 1970, 1982)
He was noted as a Christian pacifist, and spent some months in Mt Crawford prison in Wellington, NZ in 1941, for 'subversion' when he attempted to publicly espouse the Christian pacifist view. His viewpoint had changed from traditional Methodism toward Quakerism following a 1925 visit to the World War I battlefields (he had been touring the United Kingdom as the sole press correspondent travelling with the 'Invincibles' All Black rugby team), although he remained a Methodist local preacher for the whole of his life.