Mayor of Nelson
Coat of arms of the City of Nelson
Incumbent Nick Smith since 2022
Style	His/Her Worship
Seat	Civic House, 110 Trafalgar Street, Nelson
Term length	Three years
Inaugural holder	Joseph Dodson
Formation	1874
Deputy	Rohan O'Neill-Stevens
Salary	$149,909[1]
Website	Official website

Themayor of Nelson is the head of the municipal government ofNelson, New Zealand, and presides over theNelson City Council. The mayor is directly elected using asingle transferable vote electoral system.^[2] The current mayor isNick Smith, who was elected in September 2022.^[3]

Joseph Dodson was elected as the first mayor of Nelson on 1 May 1874^[4] by the city councillors under the Municipal Corporations Act 1867. He was unanimously elected to the position. Dodson was a former member of the Nelson Board of Works.Councillor Fell noted that Dodson had taken great interest in the welfare of Nelson and was an upright gentleman with integrity.

The new council came into immediate conflict with theprovincial government over finances. Nelson went bankrupt, the mayor resigned on 8 January 1875, and so did most of the councillors.^[5][6] A special meeting of the remaining Councillors was held on 12 January 1875 to appoint a new mayor but no one was forthcoming. A public meeting was held on the Friday to determine the wishes of the ratepayers.^[7]

Despite the meeting it was not until 26 February 1875 that a new mayor,Joseph Levien was appointed.^[8] Levien is credited with having set systems in place and employed capable staff that the financial crisis was able to be overcome.^[5][6] Levien died after only a short time in office on 7 June 1876.

Edward Everett was the third mayor. He was elected unopposed on 16 June 1876^[9] and resigned on 1 September 1877 in order to travel to England.William Reid Waters was appointed by the councillors to fill the vacancy left by Everett. Waters was mayor until 19 December 1877 whenJoseph Dodson was elected for a second time in his place.^[6]

When Dodson retired on 22 November 1881 Everett was elected mayor for a second term. Everett was mayor until 1882.^[6]

Charles Fell was mayor for five years until 1887. His second wife was a daughter of theArthur Atkinson. Fell was a painter.^[6][10]

John Sharp succeeded Fell. Sharp had previously represented theCity of Nelson electorate in Parliament.^[6][11]

Francis Trask was mayor for nine years (1890–1899). During his tenure, Rocks Road (now part ofState Highway 6) was built along the coast, and Queens Gardens were established.^[5]

Trask was succeeded byJoseph Auty Harley, who was installed on 20 December 1899.^[12] Harley was succeeded byHenry Baigent, who was mayor in 1901–1904 and again in 1905–1906.^[13]

Jesse Piper was mayor in 1904–1905. He lost the mayoralty in 1905 to Baigent,^[13] but succeeded again in 1906^[14] over the candidate put forward by Baigent.^[15] In the 1910 election Piper stood againstThomas Pettit and lost by 768 votes to 969.^[16]

Thomas Field was mayor from 1911 to 1913.^[5] From the following year, he was MP for Nelson for one term.^[17]

William Lock replaced Thomas Field as mayor after a fairly terse campaign againstWilliam Snodgrass in 1913. The following year he won again with only a 5-vote majority, but lost in 1915 toCharles Harley. Harley did not stand in 1917 and Snodgrass was elected.

Lock had continued to campaign for the mayoralty and was re-elected in 1921, ousting Snodgrass. Lock remained mayor until 1927 whenWalter Moffatt came to power. Moffat retired in 1935 due to ill health andGeorge Page was elected in his place. In the early 1940s, Page suffered from a prolonged period of ill health and was replaced byEdgar Neale, the deputy mayor, in 1941.

Edgar Neale was mayor from 1941 to 1947. He resigned after he became the Member of Parliament for Nelson.^[18]

Joseph Auty Harley was mayor from 1947 to 1956.^[19] He was succeeded byStanley Russell. Russell was mayor from 1956 to 1962.

Douglas Strawbridge then served as mayor from 1962 to 1968. He was succeeded byTrevor Horne who served for one term from 1968 to 1971, and two subsequent terms as Deputy Mayor from 1974 to 1980.^[20]

Civil engineering contractor and former National Secretary of the New Zealand Contractors FederationRoy McLennan became mayor from 1971 to 1980.^[21]

McLennan was followed byPeter Malone who had unsuccessfully stood as theNational Party candidate for theNelson electorate in 1963, 1976 and 1978 and in theTasman electorate in 1975. He served under McLennan as a councillor from 1974 to 1980 and then served four terms as mayor from 1980 to 1992.

FormerLabour Party Member of Parliament for NelsonPhilip Woollaston then served as mayor from 1992 to 1998.

Paul Matheson successfully beat Woollaston on his second attempt in 1998, having lost to him in 1992.^[22] He served 3 terms as mayor, and later re-stood as a Councillor and served for three terms from 2010 to 2019 including two as deputy mayor underRachel Reese.^[23]

Matheson was succeeded by formerRichmond Borough Council and inauguralTasman District Council mayorKerry Marshall who served for one term from 2007 to 2010.^[24]Aldo Miccio won the 2010 mayoralty, with the incumbent getting third place.^[25]Rachel Reese won the 2013 mayoralty, becoming Nelson’s first woman mayor.^[26] Two-term councillor Reese had been Deputy Mayor forKerry Marshall.^[27] Her deputy mayor from 2013 to 2019 was former MayorPaul Matheson.^[28] In 2019, Reese appointed Judene Edgar as deputy mayor, the first time Nelson had a woman mayor and deputy mayor.^[29] Edgar, a first-term Nelson City councillor had previously been a three-term councillor for neighbouringTasman District Council.^[30]

The list below shows all mayors of Nelson since the first Nelson City Council meeting in April 1874.^[31]

	Name	Portrait	Term	Notes
1	Joseph Dodson		1874–1875	[32]
2	Joseph Levien		1875–1876	[33]
3	Edward Everett		1876–1877	[33]
4	William Waters		1877
	Joseph Dodson		1877–1881	2nd period
	Edward Everett		1881–1882	2nd period
5	Charles Yates Fell		1882–1887	[33]
6	John Sharp		1887–1890	[33]
7	Francis Trask		1890–1899	[33]
8	Joseph Auty Harley		1899–1901	[33]
9	Henry Baigent		1901–1904	[33]
10	Jesse Piper		1904–1905	[33]
	Henry Baigent		1905–1906	2nd period
	Jesse Piper		1906–1910	2nd period
11	Thomas Pettit		1910–1911
12	Thomas Field		1911–1913	[34]
13	William Lock		1913–1915
14	Charles Harley		1915–1917
15	William Snodgrass		1917–1921
	William Lock		1921–1927	2nd period
16	Walter Moffatt		1927–1935
17	George Page		1935–1941
18	Edgar Neale		1941–1947
19	Joseph Auty Harley		1947–1956
20	Stanley Russell		1956–1962
21	Douglas Strawbridge		1962–1968
22	Trevor Horne		1968–1971
23	Roy McLennan		1971–1980
24	Peter Malone		1980–1992
25	Philip Woollaston		1992–1998
26	Paul Matheson		1998–2007
27	Kerry Marshall		2007–2010
28	Aldo Miccio		2010–2013
29	Rachel Reese		2013–2022
30	Nick Smith		2022–present[3]

• Jubilee History of Nelson: From 1842–1892, Ch.XII. Broad, Lowther. Pub. Bond, Finney, and Co, 1892, Nelson.

• Mayors of Nelson, New Zealand
• Lists of mayors of places in New Zealand
• Politics of Nelson, New Zealand

• CS1 maint: location missing publisher
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from February 2022
• Use New Zealand English from November 2016
• All Wikipedia articles written in New Zealand English