One of the lasting reminders of Arthur Porritt’s significance as a New Zealander is Porritt Avenue in Mount Victoria. The name was bestowed on the street, however, not directly for his Olympic achievements but to commemorate his time as Governor General, and is apt given its location not far from the Governor General’s official residence near the Basin Reserve.
He was a man of many talents, as Joseph Romanos and Graeme Woodfield outline in their biography ‘No Ordinary Man’. From 1967 to 1972, Arthur Porritt served as New Zealand’s eleventh Governor General and the first New Zealand-born. Even during that time, The Governor General was heard to remark “So far I have achieved a few streets, a sports stadium and a medical lecture”, in terms of naming rights.
Porritt was something of a ‘transitional’ Governor General, having been born in Whanganui in 1900 but spending most of his life in Britain. Some described him as becoming more English than the English. In his own words he became a “complete Pommy”, but “never ceased to be a New Zealander”, and kept his New Zealand passport.
He had initially gone to England as a Rhodes Scholar and studied medicine from 1924 to 1926 at Oxford University. He was also an exceptional athlete and was one of only four to represent New Zealand at the 1924 Paris Olympics. He won a bronze medal in the 100 metres and is still the only Kiwi to win an Olympic sprint medal. (That 100-metre race was later immortalised in the film Chariots of fire, but due to Porritt’s modesty – and to the bewilderment of many New Zealanders – the bronze medallist was portrayed as a fictional ‘Tom Watson’.)
After the Games, Porritt beat the Olympic gold winner, Harold Abrahams, over 100 yards and in 1925 set an Oxford–Cambridge record for that distance. It stood until 1962. He maintained his involvement with the Olympic movement at the highest level for many years.
Governor-General, Sir Arthur Porritt, with painters on the lawn at Government House, 1967.
Alexander Turnbull EP-NZ Obits-Porritt, Sir Arthur-01