It was in Wellington that he met Betty Catherine Bardsley. According to family history, they met on a blind date in 1949 when it was arranged that she would partner him to the annual law ball. They married in Wellington in 1953 and returned to Gisborne where Michael joined his father, Dawson Chrisp, in their father and son law firm of Dawson E. and Michael Chrisp.
He was a deeply loving husband and father. He loved sailing and boating, camping and trout fishing, often adventuring for weeks in the summer with his family, at Ruakituri and at Waihora, on the western shores of Lake Taupo. He enjoyed an occasional game of golf, he read widely and he was a photographer. He admired the work of the 13th century Persian poet, Rumi and thanks to his Gisborne High School English teacher, he could quote Shakespeare with impressive flourish.
Michael and Catherine lived in Owen Road on the banks of the Waimata River for most of their married lives. It was where they raised their family and welcomed their many friends and new members of the family. The cycle of river life, their serene garden, sunrise and moon rise were woven into their daily lives.
Michael had a well-stocked workshop and he relished solving practical problems including confronting the digital revolution head on. One of his projects was the restoration of a fully working model of the Gisborne Harbour Board tug, MV Takitimu, replicating the original which is moored in the harbour today. He also taught his kids how to pack a trailer properly, approach lawn mowing with reverence, tie knots, set up pulleys and fashion deadly slingshots using oranges as ammunition.
He was interested in family history and in the conservation of local art and history. Michael firmly believed that the accurate recording of our past is a critical foundation for our future. This led him personally to manage a project restoring the headstones of Captain Thomas Chrisp (1837 – 1911) and his wife, Mary (1836 – 1899) in the Houhoupiko (Makaraka) cemetery.
He was deeply interested in theology and comparative religion and philosophy and he travelled with Catherine overseas in pursuit of these interests. They both wrote books on these subjects.
Michael’s professional career and energetic involvement in community organisations closely followed a pattern begun almost 150 years before when his great grandfather, Captain Thomas Chrisp, first arrived in Poverty Bay in 1874. Captain Thomas made an indelible contribution to the fledgling township as harbour master, part owner of the Poverty Bay Herald and DJ Barry’s brewery, as a Public Trust agent, a Justice of the Peace and deputy coroner. He was the man who, in two hours obtained the necessary 200 signatures for the petition to central government to incorporate Gisborne as a borough — this was declared by proclamation on 12 May 1877.
Michael’s father Dawson was admitted to the bar in 1923 and was first employed by one of the early legal firms in Gisborne, Chrisp and Chrisp, the partners of which were his uncles. Dawson also had wide community interests, most particularly as chairman of the Gisborne Harbour Board, for many years.
Michael’s own legal career extended from 1950 until 1995 and included criminal law, civil law, family law, trustee and estate law and financial advising. With his business partner, Trevor Caley, in their firm Chrisp Caley, Michael was legal adviser to the Gisborne District Council and the Gisborne Harbour Board Port Company and to Eastland Energy during the energy reforms of the 1990s.
He could be persuaded to tell many stories of challenging court cases, cranky judges and also of once taking his new wife up the coast to the Ruatorea courthouse to witness her husband successfully defend a client who had scandalised the public, which was set firmly against him. All of these stories are worthy of a TV series or two.
During his law career Michael was also involved in many community organisations. He was a natural leader and he chaired or was an executive member or director of a wide range of legal, school, church, youth and family relationship organisations. For nine years, from 1974 to 1983, he was a Gisborne City councillor while also using his legal skills and influence to work with the community to establish the Tautoko Youth Shelter in 1981.
Michael retired from the law in 1995 but he certainly did not retire from public life.
For many years he provided mediation, arbitration and dispute resolution services. This was an important calling for him as he was fully able to practise what he had learned during his legal career about negotiating relationship disputes. Throughout his life, Michael had a strong commitment to arriving at solutions with integrity and fairness which met the interests of all parties.
In 1998 he accepted a ministerial appointment as chairman of Directors of the Crown Health Enterprise, Tairwhiti Healthcare Limited. He guided the Tairāwhiti CHE through a very difficult period of structural change until 2006.
In the 2000 New Year honours, he was awarded the Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) for services to the legal profession and the community.
Apart from his years at university, Michael lived in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa/Gisborne all his life. He was not at all insular in his thinking and during his adult life contributed to the deep changes in values, cultural attitudes and the social and economic development of our region and nationally.
Michael had an acute sense of social justice, however, and he worked hard to play his part in addressing the inequities he saw stubbornly affecting peoples’ lives. This had a lot to do with the attention he paid to learning te reo Maori in his later years.
Two significant examples of his work deserve special mention.
From 2000 to 2006, Michael was chairperson of the Gisborne Museum of Art and History Trust. During this time the trust was working to redirect the monocultural focus of the museum and art gallery to reflect our community’s historical and present day cultural and social realities. A key part of this change was the recognition that the institution had had limited Māori representation at governance level. At this time, provision was made for five iwi representatives on the board, creating a genuinely bicultural board that was the first of its kind for a museum in Aotearoa New Zealand.
One of the significant projects that Michael was involved in through the museum’s National Heritage Project was the recognition of Te Toka-a-Taiau, the rock that had been blasted in 1887 to clear the channel for the safe passage of shipping into the inner harbour. Te Toka-a-Taiau was and is still, a taonga for iwi and hapū of Tūranganui-a-Kiwa and it was a sharp personal irony for Michael when it was revealed that it had been Captain Thomas Chrisp, as head of the port company, who had signed the order to blast the rock.
It was made clear to Michael that while he was not responsible for that earlier event, he was now in a position to make a difference. This chapter in the history of the museum is a story symbolic of the learning between generations and the distance we have come and, as Michael well understood, the distance we still have to travel. Of note is the role he played with others in the commissioning of and support for the 2006 publication, The Tūranganui River, A Brief History. This was written by Michael Spedding, museum director at the time.
In 2006, reflecting on his years as chairman of the museum trust, he wrote that “every community requires cohesion and a sense of identity to remain healthy. We need to hear the stories of our past, not only celebrating the deeds of our forebears, but also understanding and learning from their mistakes. Only as we do this can understanding, healing and reconciliation take place.”
Michael is also particularly remembered for drawing up the trust deed that in 1993 established the Eastland Energy Community Trust, which has since become Trust Tairāwhiti. Michael’s colleague, John Clarke, former mayor and current chair of Trust Tairāwhiti, writes about this trust deed: “Whilst some in the community may disagree, this was a visionary and forward-thinking document. Together with the late Bob Briant, chair of the Poverty Bay Electric Power Board at the time, Michael drew up the document we have today — a document looked upon with great envy by other regions. Its flexibility allowed the Eastland Group to grow its investments which, alongside the stewardship of former trustees, has built a fund that has allowed trustees of today the opportunity to invest across Tairāwhiti. That same careful stewardship in the future will ensure Michael’s foresight and legacy will endure.”
Michael Chrisp was a man for all seasons, for all people from all walks of life. He was as comfortable in a courtroom, around a board table, around the family dining table as he was sitting at an old friend’s kitchen table, drinking cups of tea, discussing the issues of the day.
People trusted him because he was respectful and interested in them. He had a steady moral compass and a generous spirit. His rigorous intellect and lawyerly habits of dealing with the world did not stop him from being brave enough to consider different ways of being. His spiritual questing ran deep and his Sunday breakfast conversations with Catherine and other family were a cherished fixture of his later life.
This man made his life a journey of learning and with Catherine, he encouraged his descendants similarly.
For Michael’s 95th birthday, his children and grandchildren were asked to write a brief comment about what they had learned from Papa. One grandchild wrote “To be curious, to always ask questions, to never be afraid to learn something new”.
Michael’s death has given his family time to pause and reflect on what this means for them.
He was a towering presence and an extraordinary man.
Kua hinga te Tōtara i te wao nui ā Tāne.
Now cracks a noble heart: good night, sweet Prince,
And flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest.
(Hamlet, Act 5, Sc ii. William Shakespeare)
