Terence McCombs

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Sir Terence Henderson McCombs, OBE (1905 – 1982) was a New Zealand politician of the Labour Party.

He represented the Lyttelton electorate from 1935, when he won the by-election to 1951, when he was defeated in the bitter 1951 election. Lyttelton had been held by his father James McCombs, and then by his mother Elizabeth McCombs until she died.

He was Minister of Education from 1947 to 1949, near the end of the term of the First Labour Government.

He was awarded an OBE in 1971, and knighted in 1975. From 1973 to 1975 he was New Zealand's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.

He was educated at Waitaki Boys' High School and Canterbury University College. After his defeat in 1951 he returned to teaching, and became the headmaster of Cashmere High School, Christchurch. His wife died in 1952, and he became a solo parent with four school-age children.

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New Zealand Parliamentary Record 1840-1984 by J. O. Wilson (1985, Government Printer, Wellington)