Peter Simpson

Peter Alan Simpson (born 1942) is an academic, writer, literary critic, and former New Zealand politician of the Labour Party. Early life Simpson was born in Tākaka in 1942. From 1955 to 1959, he was educated at Nelson College, where he was a prefect and member of the school's 1st XV rugby union team in his final year. He gained a MA (Hons) from the University of Canterbury, and a PhD from the University of Toronto with a 1975 thesis titled 'Wordsworth to Hardy: lines of relationship and continuity in nineteenth century English poetry' . Member of Parliament He represented the electorate of Lyttelton in Parliament from 1987 to 1990, when he was defeated by Gail McIntosh, one of a number of losses contributing to the fall of the Fourth Labour Government.