STUFF
THE PRESS 160 YEARS is a series marking the launch of
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The Press will revisit stories from every year of publication.
It has been estimated that 50,000 people lined the streets of Christchurch in 1911 for the funeral procession of Mayor Thomas Edward “Tommy” Taylor.
“The cortege was perhaps the largest ever seen in Christchurch,”
The Press reported on July 31, 1911.
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Thomas Edward (“Tommy”) Taylor, a popular Christchurch MP and Mayor, who died in office, 1911.
Taylor was only 49 when he died and had been mayor for just three months. Born in working-class Lincolnshire, and mostly raised in Addington, Taylor had been an abstinence campaigner and critic of Premier Richard Seddon, as well as a strong advocate for educational and social reform. He was a three-term MP for Christchurch before going into local politics.