George William Forbes (; 12 March 1869 – 17 May 1947) was a New Zealand politician who served as the 22nd prime minister of New Zealand from 28 May 1930 to 6 December 1935. He was the last leader of the remnant of the Liberal Party having entered the House of Representatives in 1908 as a Radical in that party. Forbes was a co-founder of the United Party in 1927. Later he was a founder of the New Zealand National Party in 1936 and the party's first parliamentary leader.
Forbes was born in Lyttelton near Christchurch and he later began farming at Cheviot, North Canterbury. He became active in local politics. Forbes was first elected as a Liberal Party member of parliament in 1908 for the North Canterbury electorate of Hurunui. From the mid-1920s the Liberal Party changed its name twice and Forbes was elected leader in 1925, shortly after it had adopted the name National Party. He was the leader in 1928 when the party changed its name to the United Party, he was again elected leader in May 1930, and he initially led the newly created National Party in 1936. With the long decline of the Liberal Party since 1912, his rise to power as prime minister was somewhat unexpected, until he became the obvious successor to an increasingly incapacitated Sir Joseph Ward in 1930. It was his misfortune to take office during the very worst period of the Great Depression. He nevertheless remained in power for over five years. Forbes headed the United–Reform coalition Government that eventually became the current day New Zealand National Party.
Between 1925 and 1936 Forbes was a central figure in ending a long political division and constructing a united centre-right movement combining liberals, conservatives, moderate centrists, urban business interests, farmers, and provincial moderates into a single electoral force. The creation of the New Zealand National Party in 1936 formalised this realignment and this broad 'centre-right coalition' is one of the defining features of New Zealand politics to this day.
Often referred to as "Honest George", Forbes had a reputation for probity, considerable debating skill, a good memory, and that most essential of skills in a party leader, an ability to assess the mood of the House. A man of equable disposition and simple tastes, his courteous and friendly attitude earned him the liking and respect of parliamentarians from all sides of the House. Throughout his time in national politics his Hurunui constituents held Forbes in high regard: during his tenure as prime minister he would roll up his sleeves and help load sheep on the railway wagons for market. Illustrating the wide-spread sentiment about Forbes personally, even in the closing weeks of his government, Independent candidate and newspaper editor Oliver Duff opened his election campaign against Forbes in Hurunui in October 1935, telling his audience that, "Mr Forbes was precisely the kind of man most people thought he was. He had never seen a Prime Minister with less pretence or swank. He was courteous, fair, and a genuinely modest man."
Forbes was born in 1869 in Lyttelton, just outside the city of Christchurch. Lyttelton was a bustling port town and the arrival point for settlors and others coming to Canterbury and the South Island. His father was Robert Forbes, a well-travelled sailor, then a prosperous ships' chandler and merchant, and his mother was Annie Adamson, originally from Ireland. He gained his education at Lyttelton Borough School and, after the family moved to Christchurch, at Christchurch Boys' High School. Christchurch Boys' High School was newly established as Forbes became a student there. It was founded in 1881 to prepare students for enrolment at Canterbury College, now the University of Canterbury, with the two institutions co-located at the centre of Christchurch, in what is known today as the Christchurch Arts Centre. With neighbouring Hagley Park as the principal venue, Forbes excelled at sports while at Boys' High. Upon leaving school, he was apprenticed through his father's connections at the Christchurch merchants Gardner and Pickering, and later he was employed in his father's business at Lyttelton. By his teenage years he had become known regionally for his ability at sports, particularly in athletics, as a rower with the Union Rowing Club, in sailing, as a member of the Christchurch Sailing Club, and in rugby, as a young player with the Gloucester Street Football Club, and later the East Christchurch Football Club, where he captained the team when it won the Christchurch rugby championship. Forbes became well known to the public in Canterbury and other provinces as the captain of the acclaimed Canterbury representative rugby team of 1892. He had two brothers who also played for the Canterbury representative rugby team and he continued to play some rugby himself after later moving to Cheviot.
New Zealand was experiencing the Long Depression of the late 1870s to the early 1890s as Forbes became a young man. Difficulties in taking up new farming land in Canterbury had become a serious issue by 1885 and Forbes' interest in politics was first stoked aged 16 after hearing Sir George Grey speak in Christchurch. It was furthered considerably by George Laurenson, originally the bookkeeper and later a business partner with his father, after which he was the Liberal member of parliament for Lyttelton from 1899 to 1913. In 1935 Forbes described the considerable early political influence of William Pember Reeves, explaining in a journal interview, that he, "began to associate with a man who became a member of Parliament. He injected the political virus into my veins. I stopped thinking of only my own existence, and became conscious of the problems of the world about me." The influential Reeves, himself another Lyttelton native and outstanding sportsman, had entered Parliament in 1887 for the Christchurch electorate of St Albans. Forbes (age 21) was a member of his political committee in 1890 when Reeves was returned as a member for the three-member electorate known as City of Christchurch. Reeves became well known as a Radical Liberal and was a Liberal Party minister and major influence on Liberal policy in the 1890s. He was later the Agent-General and High Commissioner in London and, thereafter, the Director of the London School of Economics, also chairing the National Bank of New Zealand from 1917 to 1931. William Pember Reeves wrote the acclaimed New Zealand history text, 'The Long White Cloud'. In this period Forbes was a founding member of the U.R.C. Debating Society that would meet fortnightly in Christchurch and he became versed in British political history despite not attending university. After his death in 1947, it was noted by Sidney Holland in parliament that the Parliamentary Librarian of the era, Dr. Scholefield, had informed Holland that Forbes was "one of the most widely read men" and he was later described as an "inveterate user" of the Parliamentary Library. Walter Nash was also recorded at the same time paying tribute to the fact that Forbes was a great reader, telling the House that Forbes had read more biographies and knew more about the political history of New Zealand and Britain than most.
The work by John McKenzie, Minister of Lands, and the acquisition by John Ballance's first Liberal government of the Cheviot Hills Estate in 1892–93 is considered a major episode in the land settlement history of New Zealand. The social and economic benefits of closer rural settlement through the leasehold land model, in which Forbes as a farmer settler became a part, was a defining feature of his political convictions.
The public ballot for the allocation of land on the Cheviot Hills Estate was held on the morning of 15 November 1893 at the Provincial Council Chamber in Christchurch. Six hundred and fifty-five applications had been received for fifty-four rural lease in perpetuity sections. The first name drawn in the first ballot was George Forbes. After also gaining a second adjoining leasehold farming block, in early 1894, at the age of 24, Forbes drove his spring-cart from Christchurch to Cheviot, North Canterbury. He spent the first night on his new land sleeping under a dray, then lived in a tent until the first homestead was built. Forbes went on to establish himself as a successful farmer on this land that he named Crystal Brook and which remained his home until his death.