William Noel Pharazyn

William Noel Pharazyn (10 April 1894 – 11 June 1980) R.F.A. M.C. was a New Zealand soldier, businessman, journalist, lecturer and trade unionist.

Grandson of successful local merchant and runholder, Charles Johnson Pharazyn, Noel Pharazyn was born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1894 the son of Charles Pharazyn a prosperous Wairarapa runholder and landowner who lived at Longwood near Featherston and his second wife Englishwoman Maud Eleanor Kempthorne. His father died in London following an unsuccessful operation when Noel was eight. His mother remarried Gerald, widower son of Prime Minister James FitzGerald, who was a prominent Wellington civil engineer, architect, accountant and company director. Fitzgerald's sister Amy was married to now deceased Willie Levin and the new merged Fitzgerald family moved to the former Levin house, Pendennis, in Tinakori Road. There were seven indoor servants. Both Noel's grandfather Pharazyn and his uncle Robert Pharazyn had been members of the Legislative Council New Zealand's unelected Upper House of parliament.

Pharazyn was a pupil at Dulwich College London after attending Nelson College in 1908 and 1909. He then gained admission to the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and joined the Royal Field Artillery in August 1914 as a junior officer. Wounded at the battle of the Somme in 1916 he was promoted to acting Major in 1917 and awarded the Military Cross in November 1918. He remained with the army after the armistice.

Noel Pharazyn married Lydia Field on 26 November 1919 at St Paul's in Wellington. This was reported by Free Lance as a 'society wedding'. Being from a well-established family himself, his wife came from a family of Members of Parliament; her uncle Henry Augustus Field had represented the Otaki electorate from 1896 until his death three years later, and her father succeeded him and represented the electorate until 1935 with a three-year break. Another of her relatives, Thomas Field, represented the Nelson electorate for some years.

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