Richard Hudson (New Zealand politician)
New Zealand politician (1860–1953)
Richard Phineas Hudson (1860 – 2 May 1953) was a Reform Party Member of Parliament in New Zealand. Born in Ireland, he was a tea planter in British Ceylon before becoming a fruit grower in New Zealand.
Early life
Hudson was born in Dungarvan, County Waterford, Ireland in 1860. He received his education at Wills Grammar School, at Fermoy College, and at Crawford's Military Academy. For seven years, he served in the Royal Artillery Militia and gained the rank of captain. He then lived in Ceylon for 23 years, where he had tea and coffee plantations, and where he was chairman of the Haputale Planters' Association. He was credited with uniting the Ceylon tea-growers, them agreeing to pay a tax to an industry body that would be used to market Ceylon tea in overseas markets.
New Zealand
In 1908, he emigrated to New Zealand. He started growing fruit and within a short time, he held numerous offices. At first, he was president of the Motueka District Fruitgrowers' Union, then president of the Motueka District Fruit-growers' Association, then president of the Nelson District Fruit-growers' Association, before being elected president of the New Zealand Fruit-growers' Federation in September 2013 after only six years in the business.
“Richard Hudson (New Zealand politician)” enters the record as new Zealand politician (1860–1953). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Richard, Hudson and Zealand can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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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 Jan 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7328416. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1860, 1953, 1908 and 2013.
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This entry incorporates text from “Richard Hudson (New Zealand politician)” 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.