Ossie Mazengarb

{{Infobox officeholder

|honorific-prefix = The Honourable

|name = Ossie Mazengarb

|honorific-suffix = {{post-nominals|country=NZL|CBE|QC|size=100%}}

|image = Dr O C Mazengarb.jpg

|alt =

|caption = Mazengarb in 1950

|office2 = Member of the New Zealand Legislative Council

|term_start2 = 22 June 1950

|term_end2 = 31 December 1950

|birth_name = Oswald Chettle Mazengarb

|birth_date = {{Birth date|1890|05|31|df=y}}

|birth_place = Prahran, Victoria, Australia

|death_date = {{Death date and age|1963|11|27|1890|05|31|df=y}}

|death_place = Wellington, New Zealand

|party =

|spouse = {{marriage|Margaret Isabel Campbell|1920}}

|relations =

|children =

|alma_mater =

|profession = Barrister

}}

Oswald Chettle Mazengarb {{post-nominals|country=NZL|CBE|QC}} (31 May 1890 – 27 November 1963), known as Ossie Mazengarb, was a New Zealand barrister.

Biography

File:Mazengarb report 1954 cover.png

Mazengarb was born in Prahran, a suburb of Melbourne, in 1890. His family moved to Dunedin soon after his birth and he received his education at Otago Boys' High School, which he attended from 1903 to 1905. From 1908 to 1911, he studied for a Bachelor of Arts at Otago University. A scholarship in political economy enabled him to study a further year and he graduated with a Master of Arts in 1912. He then moved to Wellington to study law at Victoria College and obtained a Bachelor of Laws in 1914 and a Master of Laws in 1917. He was a member of the debating club at both universities.{{DNZB|Barton|G. P. |5m43|Mazengarb, Oswald Chettle|22 January 2022}}

Mazengarb was admitted to the bar in 1914. He formed a partnership with John Barton in 1915. Barton was appointed magistrate in Gisborne and had to dissolve the partnership.{{cite news |title=New magistrate welcomed |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/GIST19180815.2.45 |access-date=24 January 2022 |work=The Gisborne Times |volume =XLIX |issue=4948 |date=15 August 1918 |page=6}}{{DNZB|last=Axford|first=C. Joy|id=4b9|title=John Saxon Barton|access-date=22 January 2022}} Mazengarb was joined by Ernst Peterson Hay and Robert Macalister and their practice soon rose to one of the largest in the capital city.

Mazengarb wrote a few legal textbooks. Aside from his legal and judicial careers, he was also a politician, standing for the United–Reform Coalition in the {{NZ election link|1935}} in the {{NZ electorate link|Wellington East}} electorate,{{cite news |title=Election Results |url= http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=EP19351205.2.26 |accessdate=12 November 2013 |newspaper=The Evening Post |date=5 December 1935 |volume=CXX |issue=136 |page=5}} and for National in the {{NZ election link|1938}} in the {{NZ electorate link|Wellington Suburbs}} electorate.{{cite web

|title = The General Election, 1938

|url = http://atojs.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/atojs?a=d&d=AJHR1939-I.2.3.2.36

|publisher = National Library

|accessdate = 8 February 2012

|page = 5

|year = 1939

}} He was appointed in 1950 as one of the so-called suicide squad in the Legislative Council to vote for its abolition.

Alongside Alfred North, Mazengarb was appointed King's Counsel on 18 April 1947.{{cite news |title=King's Counsel |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ODT19470419.2.80 |access-date=27 April 2021 |work=Otago Daily Times |issue=26440 |date=19 April 1947 |page=6}}{{cite news |title=Two appointments to King's Counsel |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NA19470419.2.78 |access-date=27 April 2021 |work=The Northern Advocate |date=19 April 1947 |page=7}} In the 1953 Coronation Honours, Mazengarb was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for charitable and public services, especially in the field of law.{{London Gazette |issue=39866 |date=1 June 1953 |page=3004 |supp=4}}

A well-known public appointment was in 1954, by the National government of the time, to chair the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents, otherwise better known as the Mazengarb Report.

On 6 April 1920 at St John's Church in Invercargill, Mazengarb married Margaret Isabel Campbell. The couple had three daughters. Mazengarb died in Wellington on 27 November 1963.

Mazengarb was well known for his voluntary and philanthropic involvement in organisations such as the New Zealand Hemophilia Society, Wellington Rose Society, Kelliher Art Competition Trust, New Zealand Road Safety Council, Masonic Grand Lodge, and participation on the Board of Governors at Queen Margaret College.{{Cite web |last=Taonga |first=New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatu |title=Mazengarb, Oswald Chettle |url=https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/5m43/mazengarb-oswald-chettle |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=teara.govt.nz |language=en}} By far his most notable contribution was to the establishment of Heritage Incorporated, colloquially known as the Heritage Movement. A year before his death in 1963 the lawyer published The Story of Heritage: An Epic of Accomplishment through Faith and an Earnest of More to be Done on the work of the movement.{{Cite book |last=Mazengarb |first=O.C. |title=The Story of Heritage : An Epic of Accomplishment through Faith and an Earnest of More to be Done |publisher=Reed |year=1962 |location=Dunedin |publication-date=1962}}

Publications (partial list)

The law relating to negligence on the highway (first edition, Wellington: Butterworth, 1942; second edition, Sydney: Butterworth, 1952)
Advocacy in our time (London and Wellington: Sweet and Maxwell, 1964)
Mazengarb's negligence on the highway: law and practice in Australia, third edition (Sydney: Butterworths, 1957)
Mazengarb's law and practice relating to actions for negligence on the highway, fourth edition (Sydney: Butterworths, 1962)
The Story of Heritage: An Epic of Accomplishment through Faith and an Earnest of More to be Done (Dunedin: Reed, 1962)
[http://www.ibiblio.org/ahkitj/section27/#mazengarb-1954 Report of the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents] (Wellington: Government Printer, 1954) [chairperson] ([https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14760 Project Gutenberg edition also available])