Robert Logan

Who is Robert Logan?

Robert Logan was a New Zealand runholder, local politician, military leader and administrator. He was born in Langton, Berwickshire, Scotland on 2 April 1863.

Logan migrated to New Zealand from Scotland in 1881 aged 19. He became a farmer and Mounted Rifles volunteer and a member of the New Zealand Staff Corps, and rose to command the Auckland Military District just prior to the War.

Colonel Robert Logan was a key figure in the wartime administration of Western Samoa and was subsequently decorated by the French Government. He remained the Military Administrator and British representative to Samoa from the initial occupation to the end of the War, and was awarded the Croix de Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur in December 1919 ‘in recognition of valuable services in Samoa during the first year of the military occupation of that territory’.

In Samoa he tried to win local sentiment but struggled with complex economic and indigenous issues, and significantly mishandled the arrival of the influenza pandemic in November 1918, resulting in over 7,500 deaths. Logan left Samoa in January 1919 and was condemned for negligence in his handling of the Samoan influenza outbreak by a New Zealand commission of inquiry.