Joseph Braithwaite

New Zealand bookseller and politician. He was mayor of Dunedin from 1905 to 1906.

Braithwaite was born in Cliburn, near Penrith in the northwest of England, in 1848. The family emigrated to Melbourne, Australia in 1852, but Braithwaite's mother died during the voyage. His father subsequently remarried and the family moved again, in 1860, to Dunedin, New Zealand. Braithwaite's father died about three years later. He married Mary Ann Bellett in Dunedin on 2 July 1872, and they had at least 16, and as many as 22, children. Among them, John Braithwaite, was convicted and executed for mutiny during World War I, and was finally pardoned by the New Zealand government in 2000. Other sons included Rewi Braithwaite, who played in New Zealand's first official international soccer match, against Australia in 1922; Warwick Braithwaite, who became a noted orchestral conductor; and Roderick Braithwaite, who served as mayor of Hamilton between 1953 and 1959.