Succeeded by P. H. Matthews Name Wilfrid Owen | Political party Social Credit Role Poet | |
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Died November 4, 1918, Sambre–Oise Canal, France Poems Disabled, Mental Cases, Insensibility, The Parable of the Old Men and the Young, To Eros, Elegy in April and September Influenced by Siegfried Sassoon, John Keats, William Wordsworth, Horace Similar People Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke, Jessie Pope, Benjamin Britten, Isaac Rosenberg | ||
Wilfrid Barry Owen (15 June 1898 – 9 August 1984) was a New Zealand politician and the first leader (1953–1958) of New Zealand's Social Credit Party.
He became the leader of Social Credit in 1953 when it reluctantly decided to become a political party rather than supporting other parties. Social Credit got a surprising 11% of the party vote in the 1954 general election, but it dropped to 7% in the 1957 general election. For that and for the criticism of Social Credit by the Royal Commission on Monetary Policy (which Owen had not attended, as he was overseas) he was criticised at the 1958 conference, and he resigned from the League shortly after.
Owen stood for Social Credit in Lyttelton in the 1954 election and 1957 election, coming third with 2,675 and 1,014 votes respectively; and in the Riccarton 1956 by-election. In the 1972 election he stood in Tauranga for the New Democratic Party, and came fifth with 288 votes (the Social Credit candidate came third).
He was born in Wellington, and educated at Christchurch Boys' High School and Nelson College. He was an industrial chemist, and founded his cosmetics and toiletries manufacturing company Wilfrid Owen New Zealand Limited in 1938. He was a resident of Sumner, Christchurch, and died in Princess Margaret Hospital, Christchurch aged 86.
Quotes
All a poet can do today is warn
My subject is War - and the pity of War The Poetry is in the pity
What passing bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons