Obituary: Jim Macky

By ARNOLD PICKMERE

Engineer. Died aged 88.

As an engineer and administrator, James Henderson Macky CBE, who rose to be Commissioner of Works in the early 70s, worked on Government projects which helped to change New Zealand from a country cursed with rough roads and not enough electricity.

Raised in the Waikato (the family farm was at Pirongia) and educated at Hamilton High School, he gained an engineering degree at Auckland and Canterbury universities and by the 1930s was supervising work on railway construction and tunnels on the West Coast near Westport.

During World War II he served in the Army in the Middle East with the 9th Railway Survey Company, a unit of the NZ Railway Construction group.

Macky worked on surveys of several major railway routes, including an extension of the Egyptian railway through the Western Desert from Mersa Matruh, and reached the rank of Captain.

Returning to New Zealand in 1944, with malaria, he later married Elspeth McNicol, his fiancee of four years ("the most important day of my life"), and took a job on the Karapiro power scheme, on the Waikato River, which was then in the early stages of construction.

After that he went to the Kaitawa power project, the last of the three Waikaremoana schemes to be built.

In November 1945, he returned to the Waikato River and the site of what is nowthe town of Mangakino. Preparations were then being made for its construction and Macky's first job there was to plan the Maraetai power project and order the equipment.

At that stage, access was by dusty forest roads and a punt, guided by a cable, was used to get vehicles across the river.

His principal job was the Maraetai scheme and by 1949 he was in charge of it, up to completion in 1952. By 1955, he was project engineer for all schemes on the Waikato.

The shortage and inadequacy of electricity supply around the country was such in those days that the work was a national priority and Whakamaru, Atiamuri, Ohakuri and Waipapa were all under construction at once, approaching a peak employment of 2000.

And, as project engineer, Macky was also the unofficial mayor of Mangakino - and the landlord of the construction town - when it had a peak population of 6500. The Mangakino school, with a roll of 1800, was said then to be the biggest school in New Zealand.

On such projects "Jim was in his element", recalled Colin McLeod who succeeded him as Commissioner of Works. "He was a very able engineer who revelled in construction problems and would worry them through with clear and dispassionate determination. He knew there would always be an answer and would find the best and safest solution."

In 1962, Macky became director of roading in the Ministry of Works, an appointment not initially favoured by road-transport interests in view of his hydro-electric background.

In the event, "my father always said his seven years as director of roading was the highlight of his career", said a daughter, Helen Millward.

In the early 1960s Macky firmly believed that the country, as opposed to cities, generated the wealth for New Zealand and needed a network of good roads.

But he also came to play a significant part in the development of modern motorway systems in the cities including, in Auckland, planning for the coming motorway network to have proper feeder roads serving these main arteries.

Retiring at 60 and being made a CBE in 1974, he was later a Government director of Tasman Pulp and Paper and conducted an inquiry into conditions at Waiouru Military Camp.