Alfred Domett CMG (20 May 1811 – 2 November 1887) was the fourth premier of New Zealand, a close friend of the poet Robert Browning and author of the epic poem Ranolf and Amohia, a South Sea Day Dream.

Governor Fitzroy investigated the affray and concluded that while the Māori who killed those who surrendered needed rebuking, the fault actually lay with the New Zealand Company.

A public meeting held by angered settlers, asked Domett to take their case to the Colonial Secretary in Auckland where he said that the Company's claim to the land had been valid and that Pākehā killed were "innocent victims to Māori savagery".

In 1883, a revised edition of Ranolf and Amohia was printed with the subtitle "A dream of two lives", indicating the sustained bicultural conception, albeit from a Victorian and British-educated point of view, of this poetic project.

[4] Thereafter, with the approval of Browning's son, Frederick G. Kenyon edited correspondence between and relating to Browning and Domett, after the 1904 auction purchase of the letters by Reginald Smith, head of publishing firm Smith Elder and Co.[13] The epic Ranolf and Amohia, a South Sea Day Dream (1872, new edition 1877), includes details of both European and Māori life, and is by far the best known of his works.

[4] He continued to write poetry all his life, in the style of rhyming panegyrics such as An Invitation, with its allusions to the sub-tropical flora and threatened inhabitants of countries such as New Zealand: And if weary of mists you will roam undisdaining To a land where the fanciful fountains are raining Swift brilliants of boiling and beautiful spray In the violet splendour of skies that illume Such a wealth of green ferns and rare crimson tree-bloom; Where a people primeval is vanishing fast, With its faiths and its fables and ways of the past: O with reason and fancy unfettered and fearless,

While Ranolf and Amohia has been the object of both critical scrutiny (chiefly for its prolixity), and post-colonialist analysis (of its 19th-century colonialist values),[14] Domett's legacy in the literary history of New Zealand was the founding of a library of exceptional scope.

[17] The Encyclopedia of New Zealand emphasises his importance in establishing one of the finest libraries of its time, "both in the selection of the collection and in its organisation and classification", laying foundations "for the successful development of that institution.

In 2008, Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives Margaret Wilson cited the role of the General Assembly Library "in the creation" of that 1965-established institution.

[5]: 12–22 In February 1854, Domett took up the position of Commissioner of Crown lands and resident magistrate in the Ahuriri district of Hawke's Bay.

[21] As electorates at this time returned multiple members, Domett shared representation of Nelson with Edward Stafford, who had also served as Premier.

Domett was a member of the New Zealand Legislative Council from 19 June 1866 until 3 July 1874, when his membership ceased as he had returned to the country of his birth for his final years.

[6]: p.37  One biographer suggested that despite advocating for secular education and establishing the General Assembly Library, "[h]is political legacy in New Zealand is mixed...[because of his]... punitive views on the native question and his prosecution of widespread land confiscation".