Percy Dowse, Commander of the Order of the British Empire Justice of the Peace was a New Zealand politician.
Background
He was born in Lancashire and educated at Wigan Technical College. His coal miner father James was killed when he was 8 and his mother with three children got compensation of only £140. Percy thought that “things didn’t seem to be quite adding up”.
Career
He was mayor of from 1950 to 1970. He was awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1965. In West Alton Percy was secretary of the Trades and Labour Council and Organising Secretary of the Independent Labour Party.
He became a mines inspector.
He served in the Royal Air Force during the war. He was a councillor from 1935 to 1938, and then a City Council councillor from 1947 to 1950.
He was mayor of from 1950 to 1970, and on other local bodies e.g. the Wellington Regional Planning Council. During his tenure, the Town Hall and War Memorial Library and several local community centres were built.
In 1951 the new Labour council under Dowse faced its first challenge with the proposal to relieve High Street congestion by putting a new road through Riddiford Park, linking Barraud Street (then a cul-de-sac) to Kings Crescent.
The alternative was a road alongside the stopbank which the City Engineer said was too expensive and of dubious value. The Barraud Street extension (now Queen"s Drive) required moving forty houses from north of Laings Road, and according to the previous mayor William Gregory: "Riddiford Park was one of the most beautiful spots in New Zealand, and its whole character would change if a road was put through it". Five councillors voted against the road, but it went through after an empowering act was passed by Parliament.
The city now found it had a tenacious mayor, determined to drag it up out of the village mentality of the twenties in order to face up to the needs of the fifties.
During this period of maturation (the mayor was) a man who did not make mere platform pronouncements, and who was astute in political backroom negotiation, Percy Dowse was a ruthlessly practical visionary, a firm man in negotiation, and one who preferred to listen before he spoke. Although his public manner was low-keyed, no-one left his office with any other impression than that he was a quick-witted captain who ran a tight ship.
He died of cancer in Hutt Hospital in 1970.