Frank Kitts (Sir Francis Kitts after he was knighted in 1966), was Wellington’s longest-serving Mayor, holding the office for 18 years from 1956 to 1974. He lived in Shannon Street for many years and was known for walking to work.
Kitts was a full-time mayor in the days when Mayors expected to do the job part-time as a sideline to their businesses.
Standing on a Labour ticket, during his entire mayoralty Labour never had a council majority. He adopted a leadership style that encouraged impartial chairmanship of council committees. His neighbour on Shannon Street, Cath Kelly, shared with Mt Vic Historical Society in 2006 that “he didn’t take a strong line on political things”.
Some of the significant changes during his tenure included the replacement of trams with trolley buses in 1964; Council involvement in public housing, with Hanson Court flats in Newtown opened in 1965, followed by several others; and the pedestrianisation of Cuba Street in 1969.
Kitts was a big man who could apparently swallow sausage rolls at official functions “like he was posting a letter”. But Cath Kelly remembered: “he was very popular because he always talked to everyone, and he’d walk into town and say hello to everyone … And you’d meet people all sorts of places and they’d say “Oh, I know Frank Kitts. He always says hello to me.”
Kitts coming down Kennedy Street on his way to work, 28 March 1957. (We know he used to continue down to the end of Hawker St before turning right to Courtenay Place, because the photographer captured him there, too.) [Alexander Turnbull Library EP/1957/0989-F]