William Noel Pharazyn Royal Field Artillery Medical Corps was a New Zealand soldier, businessman, journalist, lecturer and trade unionist.
Background
Grandson of successful local merchant and runholder, Charles Johnson Pharazyn, Noel Pharazyn was born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1894 the son of Charles Pharazyn a prosperous Wairarapa runholder and landowner who lived at Longwood near Featherston and his second wife Englishwoman Maud Eleanor Kempthorne. His father died in London following an unsuccessful operation when Noel was eight. His mother remarried Gerald, widower son of Prime Minister James Fitzgerald, who was a prominent Wellington civil engineer, architect, accountant and company director
Education
Nelson College; Dulwich College. Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.
Career
Merged merchant and political families Fitzgerald"s sister Amy was married to now deceased Willie Levin and the new merged Fitzgerald family moved to the former Levin house, Pendennis, in Tinakori Road. There were seven indoor servants. Military Cross Pharazyn was a pupil at Dulwich College London after attending Nelson College in 1908 and 1909.
He then gained admission to the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and joined the Royal Field Artillery in August 1914 as a junior officer
He remained with the army after the armistice. Marriage Noel Pharazyn married Lydia Field on 26 November 1919 at Street Paul"s in Wellington.
Business The army reduced its establishment in 1923 so he took his gratuity and entered business in Australia but by the end of the 1920s had decided he had more important things he must do. Soviet Union Though his wealth, military background, political, pastoral and business connections and manner might have suggested otherwise Pharazyn became a committed left-wing intellectual in the early 1930s.
His main interest, journalism, led him to write for Tomorrow an independent left-wing weekly.
He disagreed with their economic policies but welcomed the new Labour government of 1935 though he attacked their compulsory unionism. During 1936 he resigned from the Friends of the Soviet Union in protest at Stalin"s show trials. Workers" unions Asked by Fintan Patrick Walsh to become secretary of the new Wellington Clerical Workers" Union he obtained election as secretary of the New Zealand Federated Clerical and Office Staff Employees" Association and became the union"s main spokesperson.
In March 1940 he was called up for military service and appointed New Zealand"s military attaché in Washington District of Columbia with the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
After the war he resumed his union involvement but took less prominent roles. He provided much support for F P Walsh and following Walsh"s defeat as clerical union president in 1960 Pharazyn ended his union and political involvement.
There were no surviving children.
Membership
After the onset of the great depression he went to London in 1930, wrote and studied economics then next year spent a month in the Soviet Union getting back to New Zealand in mid 1932 where he became a member of the Friends of the Soviet Union (New Zealand section) and a member of its national committee.