Tom Macdonald (politician)
New Zealand politician (1898-1980)
Sir Thomas Lachlan Macdonald (14 December 1898 – 11 April 1980) was a New Zealand politician of the National Party. He served as Minister of Defence (1949–1957), Minister of External Affairs (1954–1957), and Minister of Island Territories (1955–1957), and was New Zealand High Commissioner to the United Kingdom (1961–1968).
Early life and war service
Macdonald was born in Invercargill on 14 December 1898, to parents Thomas Forsaith Macdonald, a farmer, and Margaret Ann Matheson. One of his great-grandfathers, Thomas Forsaith, was a member of the 1st New Zealand Parliament. Macdonald was educated at South School and Southland Boys' High School. He served in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in Palestine in the First World War, and in the Second World War he served in Egypt, rising to the rank of captain until he was invalided home in 1943.
Political career
Macdonald was the Member of Parliament for Mataura 1938 to 1946, then Wallace 1946 to 1957, when he retired.
He was Minister of Defence (1949–1957), Minister of External Affairs (1954–1957), and Minister of Island Territories (1955–1957) in the First National Government.
From 1961 to 1968 he was the New Zealand High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. Concurrently, he was accredited as non-resident Ambassador to Ireland for his 2 last years of diplomatic services, from 1966 to 1968.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tom Macdonald (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.