Ben Waters

Born at Marton on 13 October 1907, Waters was the son of Thomas Edward Waters and Grace Hannah Eliza Waters (née Mainwaring).^[2][3] He married Kathleen Mary Dobson on 12 August 1933,^[4] and the couple went on to have five children.^[5]

Rowing

A member of the Hamilton Rowing Club, Waters began rowing as a 17-year-old.^[6] In 1929 he was a member of the Hamilton four that won the national championship.^[6] In March of the following year, he participated in a trial race for selection of the New Zealand team to compete at the 1930 British Empire Games in Hamilton, Ontario, but was not initially chosen for the 12-man squad.^[7] However, he was included in the final squad selected in late June,^[8] and competed in both the men's eight and coxed four at the 1930 Empire Games.^[9] He won a gold medal in the coxed four, alongside Mick Brough, Jack Macdonald, Bert Sandos, and Arthur Eastwood (cox), and a silver medal in the eights, finishing three-quarters of a boat length behind the victorious English crew.^[10]

Selected for the New Zealand rowing squad to compete at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, Waters was unable to afford to attend.^[5]

Waters later served as chairman of the Hamilton Rowing Club for almost 25 years.^[5]

Other sports

Waters played two rugby union matches as a forward at a provincial level for Waikato in 1929, and was later a Waikato rugby administrator.^{[5][11][12][13]} He also played representative cricket and tennis.^[5]

Waters was a carpenter and union organiser,^[14] and was described as an "incisive critic of National Party policy".^[11] During World War II he was serving as a leading aircraftman in the Royal New Zealand Air Force when he stood as the Labour Party candidate for the Waitomo electorate at the 1943 general election.^[15] He finished second, 1881 votes behind the National Party incumbent, Walter Broadfoot.^[16]

At the 1946 general election, Waters contested the newly created Piako electorate, losing by 5111 votes to Stan Goosman of the National Party.^[17] Waters stood for Labour in the Hamilton electorate at the 1951 election, but was defeated by National's incumbent MP, Hilda Ross, by 2252 votes.^[17] In 1954, Waters again stood against Ross in Hamilton, reducing her majority to 1430.^[17] Following Ross's death in 1959, Waters contested the resulting by-election, but lost to Lance Adams-Schneider from National by 2988 votes.^[17]

Waters became a builder and building supervisor.^[5] He lived in retirement in Hamilton,^[5] and was predeceased by his wife, Kathleen, in 1973.^[18] Waters himself died on 30 October 1992, and he was buried at Hamilton East Cemetery.^[19]