Logan, Robert 1863 - 1935 Runholder, local politician, military leader, administrator Robert Logan was born at Langton, Berwickshire, Scotland, on 2 April 1863, the son of Euphemia Helen Logan and her husband, Thomas Logan, a tenant farmer. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy. Arriving in New Zealand in 1881, he worked as a station hand in Southland before purchasing his own sheep run, Maritanga, two years later in Otago's Maniototo district. He married Elizabeth Catherine Preston at Fortrose, Southland, on 16 April 1890; they had four sons, one of whom died in infancy. Elizabeth died in 1910 and about 1914 Logan married Eleanor Mary Preston, with whom he had two daughters. Logan was active in local government, becoming a member of the Maniototo County Council in 1888 and chairman from 1901 to 1902. He raised the Maniototo Mounted Rifle Volunteers in 1900 and joined the 1st Otago Mounted Rifle Volunteers in 1904. He was promoted to major and then to lieutenant colonel in 1908. In March 1911 Logan was made an honorary aide de camp to the governor general and in June 1912 he became a temporary colonel in the regular army. He was appointed officer commanding the Auckland Military District, moved to Auckland and sold his sheep run. He was to become a full colonel in October 1915. At the outbreak of the First World War Logan was appointed to command the 1,383-strong expeditionary force to capture German Samoa (afterwards renamed Western Samoa) as 'a great and urgent Imperial Service'. The Germans were in no position to offer resistance and on 29 August 1914 Logan assumed responsibility as military administrator. He held this position throughout the war, by 1918 governing some 38,000 Samoans and another 1,500 Europeans, of whom over one-third were Germans. http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/DNZB/alt_essayBody.asp?essayID=3L12
