John Barnes

John Barnes was one of the real ‘characters’ of early Dunedin politics, a bluff and blunt contractor who spoke his mind and took no prisoners. He was born at Stockport in Lancashire in 1817 and received little or no education. He was functionally illiterate when he came to Dunedin on the Nourmahal in 1858 but he was no fool. He went into business as a carter and contractor and quickly made money. In 1862 he was elected to the Dunedin Town Board and his speeches delighted the local newspapers who reported them in the raw Lancashire language in which he spoke. Perhaps because of his lack of education, Barnes was aggressive in Board meetings and created a stormy atmosphere. But he was also shrewd, had a sense of humour and practical common sense.

Barnes spent long periods as a public representative, first on the Town Board, then its successor the Dunedin City Council. He ultimately became mayor of the city in 1885, surely the only Dunedin civic leader who could neither read nor write. He interspersed his civic roles with periods as the city’s inspector of works and was involved with numerous public works developments. He tended to be overzealous in his criticism of other contractors and officious in his dealings with city workers. One irritated drayman went so far as to hit Barnes over the head with a shovel. Though he was quite seriously hurt, Barnes received scant sympathy as it was felt he had only himself to blame.

Barnes’s limitations caught up with him when he became mayor. There was a tragic explosion during work on Dowling Street in 1886 that killed two women in a Princes Street building when fragments of blasted rock crashed through their ceiling. Barnes’s son William had been in charge of the operation and the mayor’s role came in for criticism. The Otago Daily Times cited his ‘misdirected zeal’ and his ‘limited mental horizon’ which saw him act in office as an autocratic inspector of works. At the end of Barnes’s term, his long career in local government came to a close. He died three years later in 1889. He had married four times and outlived three of his wives. The couple pictured with him are his son William and William’s wife.