History
Assuming that Sewell is counted as the first Prime Minister, thirty-eight people have held the office since it was established. Some of these people have held it on several different occasions, with the record for maximum number of times being shared between William Fox and Harry Atkinson (both of whom served four times). The longest that anyone has served in the office is thirteen years, a record set by Richard Seddon. The first holder of the office, Henry Sewell, led the country for the shortest total time; his only term lasted only thirteen days (the shortest term actually belonged to Harry Atkinson, whose third term lasted only seven days, but Atkinson served longer than Sewell in total). The youngest to hold office was Edward Stafford, who was 37 years old when he became Premier in 1856. The oldest was Walter Nash, who was 75 years old in 1957.
New Zealand is also one of the few countries in the world to have had two female heads of government, and one of only two countries to have two female heads of government directly succeed the other (the other being Sri Lanka). The first female New Zealand Prime Minister was Jenny Shipley, who replaced Prime Minister Jim Bolger in mid-1997. She was succeeded by the next Prime Minister, Helen Clark, in 1999.
Read more about this topic: Prime Minister Of New Zealand
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“History takes time.... History makes memory.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)