Ossie Mazengarb

Who was Ossie Mazengarb?

Oswald Chettle "Ossie" Mazengarb CBE KC was a New Zealand barrister. His other well-known public appointment was in 1954, by the National government of the time, to chair the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents, otherwise better known as the Mazengarb Report.

Mazengarb was born in Prahran, a suburb of Melbourne, in 1890.

Mazengarb wrote a few legal textbooks. Aside from his legal and judicial careers, he was also a politician, standing for the United/Reform Coalition in the 1935 election in the Wellington East electorate, and for National in the 1938 election in the Wellington Suburbs electorate. He was appointed in 1950 as one of the so-called suicide squad in the Legislative Council to vote for its abolition.

In the 1953 Coronation Honours Mazengarb was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for charitable and public services, especially in the field of law.

Mazengarb died on 27 November 1963 at Wellington.