Arthur Grigg

File:Arthur Nattle Grigg.jpg

Arthur Nattle Grigg MC (1896 – 29 November 1941) was a New Zealand politician of the National Party.

Biography

{{NZ parlbox

|start={{NZ election link year|1938}}

|end=1941

|term=26th

|electorate=Mid-Canterbury

|party=New Zealand National Party

}}

Grigg was born in 1896 to farmer John Charles Nattle Grigg and Alice Montgomerie Hutton, making him a grandson of prominent Canterbury runholder John Grigg. He was educated at Christ's College and was to become a farmer upon completing his education.{{r|ep19411210}}

During World War I Grigg served in the Royal Field Artillery from 1916 to 1919. After returning home he married Mary Cracroft Wilson in 1920, with whom he had two sons and a daughter.{{r|ep19411210}} Grigg represented the electorate of Mid-Canterbury in Parliament from the {{NZ election link|1938}}, when he defeated Horace Herring.{{cite news |title=The Mid-Canterbury Seat |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=EG19381028.2.26 |accessdate=2 December 2011 |work=Ellesmere Guardian |volume=LIX |issue=86 |date=28 October 1938 |page=5}} He was a Major in the NZEF in World War II, and was killed on 29 November 1941{{cite book |last= Scholefield |first= Guy |title= New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1949 |authorlink=Guy Scholefield |edition=3rd |origyear= First ed. published 1913 |year= 1950 |publisher=Govt. Printer |location= Wellington |page=110}} when Brigadier Hargest's headquarters in Libya was overrun.{{r|ep19411210}} He was posthumously awarded the Military Cross.{{cite web |url=https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features-pre-2016/document/00NZPHomeNews210420101/parliamentarians-in-two-world-wars#RelatedAnchor |title=Parliamentarians in two world wars |work=New Zealand Parliament |date=23 April 2012 |accessdate=29 December 2019 |archive-date=13 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200613153547/https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features-pre-2016/document/00NZPHomeNews210420101/parliamentarians-in-two-world-wars#RelatedAnchor |url-status=dead }}

Prime Minister Peter Fraser described Grigg as "a young member of ability and promise".{{cite news | url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19411210.2.93 | title=Killed in Action / Major A. N. Grigg, M.P. | work=The Evening Post | date=1941-12-10 | accessdate=22 September 2016 | pages=9}} His widow Mary Grigg succeeded him in the Mid-Canterbury electorate and became the first woman National MP, but retired when she remarried.{{DNZB|Garner|Jean |5g22|Grigg, Mary Victoria Cracroft|8 November 2013}}

References

The First 50 Years: A History of the New Zealand National Party by Barry Gustafson (1986, Reed Methuen, Auckland) {{ISBN|0-474-00177-6}}

{{s-ttl | title = Member of Parliament for Mid-Canterbury | years=1938–1941}}

Category:1896 births

Category:1941 deaths

Category:People educated at Christ's College, Christchurch

Category:20th-century New Zealand farmers

Category:Royal Field Artillery soldiers

Category:New Zealand military personnel of World War I

Category:20th-century New Zealand politicians

Category:New Zealand National Party MPs

Category:Members of the New Zealand House of Representatives

Category:New Zealand MPs for South Island electorates

Category:New Zealand military personnel killed in World War II