Civic Duty
Hunter's first appointment to public office in Wellington was as a member of the Management Committee of the Port Nicholson Exchange Room and Public Library. He was one of the first Justices of the Court in Wellington, which was founded in October 1841, having been appointed a Justice of the Peace some time earlier. Hunter was also involved in creating regulations for managing Wellington harbour.
With the passing of the Municipal Corporation Bill in 1842, Wellington was able to elect its own mayor and aldermen. On 3 October 1842, Hunter, with the most votes of the 12 aldermen elected to the new Wellington Borough, was declared elected. Initial business of the Council was the appointment of officers and organising its finances.
In 1843, while attending a meeting to express sympathy for the victims of the Wairau Affray he caught a chill and died a few days later. His funeral was a significant one, attended by both local Māori and Pākehā alike.
He was succeeded as mayor by William Guyton.
Read more about this topic: George Hunter (mayor)
Famous quotes containing the words civic and/or duty:
“It is thus that the few rare lucid well-disposed people who have had to struggle on the earth find themselves at certain hours of the day or night in the depth of certain authentic and waking nightmare states, surrounded by the formidable suction, the formidable tentacular oppression of a kind of civic magic which will soon be seen appearing openly in social behavior.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)
“Look carefully through all the claims pressing upon you in your complicated life, and decide once and for all what it is that is the one really important and overmastering duty in it, and should be the one dominating aim. Then remember that if you succeed in that, the others, so multifarious, are really no more than the fringe of the garment, and that you need not spend so much anxiety over them, provided that the one most important is faithfully attended to.”
—Anna C. Brackett (1836–1911)