In the Journal of the New Zealand Federation of Historical Societies is a story of a man who arrived in Auckland in 1896. His name was Paul Maximilian Adolf Hansen and he came as agent of a company formed in London to acquire mines and mining rights in NZ. He was born in Coburg, Bavaria where his parents had moved from Schliewig. His father was chaplain to the Danish navy and Paul Hansen always claimed he was Danish ethnicity, not German, and in 1911 became the Danish Vice-Consul in Auckland. He had been naturalised in 1899. The mining company had wound up in 1898 and he did various things in New Zealand: was agent for British Electric Traction to operate a tramway service in Auckland and set up others throughout the country; was managing director of Auckland Electric Tramways Co; developed a tea kiosk; established a real estate firm, married and had a child; was a member of the Manchester Unity Oddfellows, patron of various sporting and social clubs; and was generally high up in social circles.



Then New Zealand entered the war. His firm donated money to the war fund and Hansen stressed his Danish roots. To no avail – he was interned as an enemy alien on April 19 1916, and his naturalisation was revoked on May 27 1918. A road carrying his name had it changed. His naturalisation was reinstated in 1923, and he returned to real estate. His obituaries don’t mention his war internment.



What interested me most about this article was that the official documents surrounding his interment for three years are still embargoed until 2016, though the article said a request is underway for early release of the documents. What are the rules round such embargoes – are they put in at the time and not reviewed? or is there a review of them periodically? It’s seems a very long time for someone who had been in New Zealand for twenty years by then and hadn’t shown any sign of anti-Empire sentiments. And presumably there wasn’t anything fishy about the way the internment was carried out.



On the 15^th May 1915 our paper has an short account of a mob attack at the start of the war. “A mob, estimated to be 3000-strong, attacks shops with German names in Wanganui. The mayor and several local police officers are injured while attempting to subdue the anti-German sentiments brought about by the war.” Wanganui seems a strange town – 4 years late the mayor (not necessarily the same one) shot a local poet, seriously wounding him. I was about to say I didn’t know why but I have looked this up and it is all very strange – a story of homosexuality, blackmail, set-ups . After being imprisoned for years the mayor was later murdered during May Day riots in Berlin in 1928. He wasn’t mentioned in local histories for 50 years. http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/wanganui-mayor-charles-mackay-shoots-poet-darcy-cresswell

Questions relating to citizenship, subjecthood, residency and naturalisation etc are often arbitrary, contradictory, perverse and sometimes downright baffling. It calls to mind of the case of (rugby) Union player Shane Howarth who played for Wales between 1998 and 2000. A New Zealander, Howarth was selected by the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) on the grounds of family descent. So far so good. He earned 14 caps for Wales and was one of the best full-backs in the Northern Hemisphere, notably being part of the Welsh team which beat both France and England during the 1999 Five Nations Championship. It later turned out, however, that there was no documented evidence of his grandfather Thomas Williams having been born in Cardiff as had been stated and Howarth was immediately and unceremoniously dropped by the WRU.

One might have thought that the international ‘grandparent rule’ could at least have been extended to include great-grandparents. Either that or else one would have thought that in a sport such as (rugby) Union, with the spirit of the game and particularly with the historic ties between the Commonwealth of Nations realms, then such genealogical pettiness was unwarranted. The same, of course, applies to the historic/cultural links between New Zealand, Australia and the various Pacific islands or those between Canada and France or those between Argentina and Italy and so on. But rules is rules I suppose. In the intervening 20 years the rules have changed again and have gone almost to another extreme. For instance, the current ‘residency rule’ is so lax that a player seemingly need only step off a plane to qualify for that country’s team with consequently improbable characters lining up wearing the jerseys of Japan and Italy etc. The irony of Howarth’s case is that at the time he was chosen (and later banned) by the WRU, the then Wales coach Graham Henry was also a New Zealander. The WRU obviously had no qualms about choosing him or his successor Steve Hansen (also a New Zealander) to represent Wales.

I don’t know if Steve Hansen is any relation to Paul Hansen but I suppose Hansen is a relatively common family name in New Zealand let alone in Scandinavia and north Germany. It seems that it was his German birth and citizenship rather than his Danish nationality which counted against Paul Hansen. It does seem crassly unfair though considering that he had even served as a Danish Vice-Consul in Auckland.

With regard to Charles Mackay, then this article suggests that he was indeed the same mayor who was injured during the anti-German rioting in May 1915:  

Whanganui - beyond the barricades

Mackay (3 times mayor of Wanganui) had been re-elected just days before. He replaced mayor Thomas Williams (no known relation to Shane Howarth).