Arthur Dudley Dobson
New Zealand engineer and surveyor (1841–1939)
Sir Arthur Dudley Dobson (9 September 1841 – 5 March 1934) was a New Zealand surveyor, engineer and explorer. Born in London, he came to Lyttelton, New Zealand, in 1850 on one of the First Four Ships. He is best known for taking the first party of Europeans over Arthur's Pass.
Early life
Arthur Dudley Dobson was born in Islington, London, in 1841. He was the son of Edward Dobson (1816–1908) and Mary Ann, née Lough. His father was a surveyor and railway engineer, which had a major influence on his life. He received his early education in Nottingham.
When the railway boom ended in England, his father decided to emigrate to New Zealand. He purchased land from the Canterbury Association and sailed to the colony on the Cressy, one of the First Four Ships. The Cressy arrived in Lyttelton on 27 December 1850.
“Arthur Dudley Dobson” enters the record as new Zealand engineer and surveyor (1841–1939). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Arthur, Dudley and Dobson can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Arthur Dudley Dobson” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Arthur, Dudley and Dobson provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q709166. VIAF identifies the subject as 2151219. The Library of Congress control number is no2003027863. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1841, 1934, 1850 and 1816.
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This entry incorporates text from “Arthur Dudley Dobson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.