William Alfred Fitzherbert (1842 – 2 February 1906) was the first

Mayor of Lower Hutt The city of Lower Hutt, New Zealand, was first proclaimed a borough on 1 February 1891. Prior to this it had been part of Hutt County, initially as a Roads Board and from 1881 as a Town Board. Since 2019, the mayor has been Campbell Barry. Li ...

, New Zealand, from when Lower Hutt became a borough in 1891 to 1898. He was an engineer and farmer in New Zealand. William Fitzherbert was born in London in 1842, a son of

William Fitzherbert William Fitzherbert may refer to: *Saint William of York, Archbishop of York *William Fitzherbert (New Zealand politician) (1810–1891), New Zealand politician * Sir William FitzHerbert, 1st Baronet (1748–1791), of Derbyshire *William Fitzherb ...

. The family followed his father to Wellington about 1846. Fitzherbert was educated in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by metr ...

, at Sydney Grammar School, and at

Canterbury University College The University of Canterbury ( mi, Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha; postnominal abbreviation ''Cantuar.'' or ''Cant.'' for ''Cantuariensis'', the Latin name for Canterbury) is a public research university based in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was f ...

. He was an engineer with the

Wellington Provincial Council Wellington Province, governed by the Wellington Provincial Council, was one of the provinces of New Zealand from 1853 until the abolition of provincial government in 1876. It covered much of the southern half of the North Island until November ...

and with the Hutt County Council. He farmed in the Wanganui district, and then in the

Hutt Valley The Hutt Valley (or 'The Hutt') is the large area of fairly flat land in the Hutt River valley in the Wellington region of New Zealand. Like the river that flows through it, it takes its name from Sir William Hutt, a director of the New Zeala ...

and in

Hawke's Bay Hawke's Bay ( mi, Te Matau-a-Māui) is a local government region on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island. The region's name derives from Hawke Bay, which was named by Captain James Cook in honour of Admiral Edward Hawke. The region i ...

. On 17 November 1875, he married Fanny, the adopted daughter of George Waterhouse. They had five daughters and four sons. In 1904 he built Norbury, now Minoh Friendship House, to house his daughter Alice and her husband George William von Zedlitz, Victoria University's first professor of

modern language A modern language is any human language that is currently in use. The term is used in language education to distinguish between languages which are used for day-to-day communication (such as French and German) and dead classical languages such a ...

s. Alice married Professor von Zedlitz in 1905, and

Alicetown Alicetown is a central suburb of Lower Hutt located at the bottom of the North Island of New Zealand. The suburb is situated north of the major suburb of Petone and west of the Lower Hutt CBD. Its boundaries are the Ewen Bridge that crosses the ...

in Lower Hutt was named after her. Fitzherbert died suddenly in Lower Hutt on 2 February 1906 of heart failure. In 2011, plaques were installed on 13 boulders at the Hutt Recreation Ground commemorating the first 13 mayors.

References

1842 births 1906 deaths Mayors of Lower Hutt New Zealand farmers English emigrants to New Zealand 19th-century New Zealand politicians 19th-century New Zealand engineers {{NewZealand-mayor-stub