Les Gandar

Leslie Walter Gandar (26 January 1919 – 16 December 1994) was a New Zealand politician of the National Party.

Gandar was born in 1919. He received his education from Kelburn Normal, Wellington College, and Victoria University College, from where he graduated with a BSc.^[1] During World War II, he fought for the Royal New Zealand Air Force in Britain, the Middle East, and Iran. He returned to his sheep farm in the Manawatu after the war. He was elected onto Pohangina County Council and served from 1952 to 1969, including ten years as chairman. He had a strong interest in education and was on the Massey University Council from 1963 and was the university's chancellor from 1970 to 1975.^[1]

He represented the Manawatu electorate from 1966 to 1972, then Ruahine from 1972 to 1978.^[2] He was defeated in 1978 for the Rangitikei electorate by Bruce Beetham.^[3] Beetham had won the electorate in the Rangitikei by-election, held earlier in the year on 18 February 1978 after the death of Sir Roy Jack.^[4] National planned that Gandar would take over the new electorate at the November general election, and stood an interim candidate, local Jim Bull, in the by-election. But, to general surprise, Beetham won the by-election for Social Credit.

Gandar was a cabinet minister in the Third National Government of New Zealand holding the Education portfolio (1975–1978),^[5] and from 1979 to 1982 was the New Zealand High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.

Gandar died on 16 December 1994 in Wellington and was cremated.^[6]

In 1977, Gandar was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal, and in 1990 he received the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal.^[7]

• Gustafson, Barry (1986). The First 50 Years : A History of the New Zealand National Party. Auckland: Reed Methuen. ISBN 0-474-00177-6.
• Wilson, James Oakley (1985) [First ed. published 1913]. New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1984 (4th ed.). Wellington: V.R. Ward, Govt. Printer. OCLC 154283103.