Robert Logan (politician)

Robert Logan (2 April 1863 – 4 February 1935) was a New Zealand runholder, local politician, military leader and administrator. He was born in Langton, Berwickshire, Scotland on 2 April 1863.

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 invasion through until 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’. A member of the New Zealand Staff Corps, Logan had immigrated to New Zealand from Scotland in 1881 and became a farmer and Mounted Rifles volunteer before rising to Command the Auckland Military District just prior to the War. 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 the death over of 7,500 people. 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. He was subsequently posted to the retired list in December 1919 and returned to Great Britain where he died in 1935.