William Spain

William Spain (14 March 1803 – 5 April 1876) was an English lawyer who was appointed in 1841 as a New Zealand Land Claims Commissioner to investigate land purchases from the Māori people by the New Zealand Company. He spent about four years in New Zealand, working as one of the most highly-paid officials in the colony, before moving to New South Wales to return to work as a solicitor.

Spain was born in Cowes, Hampshire, England, a son of George Spain. He worked as an attorney in London before his appointment as New Zealand Land Commissioner and was an active supporter of the Liberal Party.George Clarke Jnr, a clerk in the Native Department who served as a translator during the land claim commission hearings, described him as "a man of solid intelligence, but with a good deal of legal pedantry about him. He was somewhat slow in thinking, very wooden in his apprehension of ways of dealing with new emergencies, steady and rather plodding in his ways, thoroughly honest in intention, and utterly immovable in threats, though he may have been softened by flattery." Continued delays in resolving questions of ownership of land in many areas led to strong public criticism of Spain by mid-1843, although the delay was almost all due to stalling tactics by New Zealand Company principal agent William Wakefield.

In August 1840 the New South Wales Legislative Council passed the New Zealand Land Claims Bill to establish a New Zealand Land Commission, which would investigate the validity of all purchases of land in New Zealand from Māori prior to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, which transferred sovereignty over New Zealand to the British Crown. The inquiry, by three commissioners, was designed to determine who owned what land, in order to formalise and regulate land ownership in the new colony. In late 1840 Governor George Gipps exempted all New Zealand Company purchases from the commission's inquiry.

The Colonial Office and the New Zealand Company came to an agreement in November 1840 under which the company would be given a royal charter of incorporation and also a Crown grant to land in defined areas of the country. On 3 December the British Government told the company that a commission would be set up to investigate all the company's New Zealand land titles, after which bona fide purchases would be confirmed with a Crown grant. British Colonial Secretary Lord John Russell selected Spain to fill the role of commissioner, to take effect from 20 January 1841. He intended that Spain be the sole commissioner, believing that having a British rather than a local government appointee would be seen as more impartial. Spain was given a fixed annual salary of ₤2000, which equalled that of the Chief Justice and made the pair the second-highest paid public officials in New Zealand, behind the Governor.

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