John Vernon Head

Personal life

John Vernon Head was born in Napier, New Zealand on 24 March 1927, the adopted son of Gilbert Charles Head and Marjorie Cecil Bretherton of Napier. At age 16 he discovered that he was adopted when he accidentally discovered his birth certificate which showed his name as John Vernon Peillon.

John was educated at Parkvale Primary School, Hastings High School, Rotorua High School and Whakatane High School where he was Dux in 1943. Boy Scouts was an important early life influence culminating in receiving the highest scouting award of Kings Scout.

He married fellow teacher Avril Nell Pope (great granddaughter of the educationalist James Henry Pope) in Hawera on 31 December 1949. They had 4 children; two boys and two girls; one of the girls dying at an early age.

In 1988 at age 61, John met his birth mother for the first time, Agnes Isobel Rolls née Peillon, "Nessie". She was the granddaughter of a French gold-miner, Paul Peillon, who was killed in the explosion at the Brunner Mine disaster in 1896. Paul was originally from near Lyon, France. John undertook extensive research of his family history and made four trips to Lyon as part of this research. Away from work and his pacifist activities he was a keen gardener, walker and traveller.

Army

John Head attended the Royal Military College, Duntroon in Australia achieving the rank of Captain in the New Zealand Army. He did not see active service as World War II ended before he graduated. At aged 16, he was the youngest NZ cadet ever accepted into the school.

He continued for twelve years as a Commissioned Officer in the Territorial Force of the New Zealand Army Reserves.

Teacher

John Head attended Auckland Teachers College in 1947 and Ardmore, New Zealand Teachers College in 1948. At Ardmore in its foundation year, he was elected Student Executive Treasurer.

Over a period of 40 years John Head taught at a number of New Zealand schools and was Principal of the following schools:

He was also an Exchange Teacher at Benson School in Croydon, London in 1961 and was Education Officer on Niue Island in the 1965-66.

John Head was a keen photographer and in 1976 he and his son Geoff visited Chile to make three audio visual programmes of Family Life in Chile for the Department of Education (New Zealand) which were used in New Zealand primary schools geography studies.

Commission for the Environment

After retirement from teaching in 1984 he took up a position as Consultant for the New Zealand Commission for the Environment and in 1986 wrote "Landscape in the School Environment, A Guide to ways of Improving School Grounds."

Political Associations

John Head spent much of his retirement years working for the ideals of peace and disarmament. His anti-war principles led him into demonstrations, most recently against the United States invasion of Iraq. Mr Head worked in groups supporting East Timor and democracy in Burma. He was interested in Niue, where he lived for two years in the 1960s, and was a support to Niueans living in New Zealand.

New Zealand Campaign Against Landmines

John Head was the founding Convenor of the New Zealand Campaign Against Landmines, associated with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

He was concerned by the use of cluster bombs and nerve gas as well as anti-personnel mines and horrified by the amount of funding available for countries to develop weapons of war with little regard for humanitarian consequences. His opposition to all such weapons grew during 15 years in the Territorial Army after World War II.

Until Mr Head began campaigning, officials and humanitarian NGOs in New Zealand were relatively oblivious to the scale of the impact of landmines on innocent civilian populations in war-torn countries.

In 1993, paying his own way, as he often did throughout his leadership of Calm, Mr Head attended the first international NGO conference in London to seek information and an idea of a role New Zealand could play. Through his membership of the United Nations Association and the National Consultative Committee on Disarmament, Calm was founded in New Zealand in September 1993, the second country in the world to have a national landmine organisation. It brought together the support of many influential NGOs such as Red Cross, World Vision and Oxfam. Early on he had the support of the Foreign Affairs Ministry. He also found the army was not antagonistic and there was much public approval of his cause.

John Head organised the visit of Jody Williams from the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) to New Zealand in late November 1993 and held a press luncheon and public lecture for her in Wellington and organised several meetings for her with media in Auckland.

In 1996, after years of well organised effort by CALM, New Zealand ceased the operational use of landmines and in 1997 signed the Ottawa Convention to which 152 nations are now signatories.

Mr Head travelled extensively assisting the international landmines campaign. He was a major organiser for a Calm conference in Fiji in 1997 which spread the landmine issue to South Pacific nations. He was a key speaker in Moscow for the launch of the organisation there in 1998.

He stood down from leadership of Calm in 1998.

United Nations Association of New Zealand

Former President of the Wellington Branch of the United Nations Association of New Zealand

New Zealand Educational Institute

Past President of the Wellington Branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute.

New Zealand Parliament

On 3 December 1998, MP Graham Kelly expressed a debt of gratitude during the Parliamentary Debate for the Anti-Personnel Mines Prohibition Bill 1988, for John Head's contribution:

"I conclude with one other remark---that is, to acknowledge and put on record the thanks of all New Zealanders to John Head, who is in the House today. He chaired the New Zealand Campaign Against Landmines. He told me only a short while ago that it has been an almost full-time job since 1992.

We owe him a debt of gratitude, not only the people of New Zealand, not only Parliament, not only the organisations that he has convinced to support the campaign, but those women, children, and men in other countries who have been saved as a result of the activities that have started, and who will avoid being maimed or killed in the future.

I know that he has had extensive travel overseas in his lobbying with international organisations, and he has made a major commitment in his retirement. I thank him for the contribution he has made. All New Zealanders will be most grateful to him."

Princess Diana

John Head received a personal letter from Diana, Princess of Wales dated 3 June 1997. She wrote, "...it is only with the support of people such as yourself, that this terrible issue will finally be brought to a successful conclusion".

Queen's Service Medal

In the 2001 New Years' Honours John Head was awarded the Queen's Service Medal for Public Services (QSM) by the Governor General of New Zealand, The Rt Hon Sir Michael Hardie Boys.

Nobel Laureate Jody Williams

Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams delivered a "John V. Head Memorial Lecture" on 19 February 2008 to honour the legacy of long-time New Zealand disarmament campaigner John Vernon Head. File:John_V._Head_Memorial_Lecture_by_Nobel_Peace_Laureate_Ms._Jody_Williams.pdf