John Logan Campbell was known as the father of Auckland. He was here when the city was founded in 1840 and established Brown, Campbell & Co, one of the original companies behind Lion, the multi-national food and beverage corporation which produces some of New Zealand's top beer brands including Steinlager.
Campbell was for a time Mayor, and also a generous philanthropist who gave Cornwall Park to the people of Auckland in 1901.
The Herald of the day was lavish in its praise for Campbell and his gift: "When Greater Auckland spreads unbrokenly from Waitemata to Manukau and occupies the whole of the narrow isthmus which seems providentially designed for the emporium of a great commercial people, the beautiful Cornwall Park will lie in its midst to rejoice and gladden the lives of countless thousands."
Logan Campbell is buried at the top of One Tree Hill - Maungakiekie - and his gravestone has a Latin motto which means "if you need a memorial look about you". It is an apt epitaph.
"The nearer view takes in magnificent parkland; the distant prospect the whole sweep of the isthmus and its fringing harbours," says Logan Campbell's biographer Russell Stone in The Father and his Gift.
