Robert J. Pope

Robert James Pope (24 March 1865 – 12 April 1949) was a New Zealand poet, songwriter, violinist, cricketer, teacher, and headmaster. He became well known in Wellington between 1910 and 1945 for his contributions to the New Zealand Free Lance and the popular 'Postscripts' column in the Evening Post newspaper as well as for his song ‘New Zealand, My Homeland’ used in New Zealand schools.

Pope was born in Caversham, Dunedin. He was one of a family of 12 and the son of Helen Grant Rattray and James Henry Pope (a future Government inspector of native schools and founder of the native school system). He attended Caversham District School and on 12 August 1881 left Dunedin aboard the Penguin arriving in Wellington where he entered Wellington College.

After school, Pope passed junior Civil Service Examinations in 1888, New Zealand University Examinations in 1889 and Teacher’s Examinations in the early 1890s. He lived in various parts of the lower and central North Island and began working as a teacher. He married Ernestina Victoria Pullar in Wellington on 29 December 1896. The couple had three children: Robert Earle Pope, Flora Pope and Eileen Fortune (née Pope). Eileen married Reo Fortune (1903–79), a well-known anthropologist at Cambridge University in England.

In all, Pope worked for the Wellington Education Board for 37 years as teacher and headmaster. He began his teaching at Te Aute College, Hawke’s Bay, and then became a master at the first school in Levin. He moved from Levin Public School to Featherston as an assistant teacher there and was next an assistant teacher at Newtown School in Wellington. He then became a headmaster at Kaiwaiwai School in the Wairarapa and after headmaster of Kaiwarra School in Wellington for 20 years. After a fire destroyed his original residence near Kaiwarra School in 1911, he lived in various suburbs of Wellington. Pope retired from Kaiwarra School in December 1925.

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