Arthur Edgar Gravenor Rhodes OBE (20 March 1859 – 26 December 1922) was a New Zealand member of parliament and mayor of Christchurch.

[2] He received his education at Christ's College, Christchurch, where he captained the cricket and the football teams.

[1][4] Later, Michael Godby and John Heaton Rhodes became partners and the firm was called 'Rhodes Ross'.

[citation needed] After Rhodes returned from his tertiary education in England, he purchased 9 acres (3.6 ha) of land in Merivale, setting himself up for having a family and demonstrating his ambitions.

[2] Many important people stayed at Te Koraha, including Governors George Grey and Lord Islington.

[7] Extensively damaged in the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake, the building was restored and reopened in July 2012.

[12] "The Member for Geraldine", wrote a brutally frank parliamentary reporter, "has few of the requisites for a public speaker.

Words do not come readily to his bidding and when they do come they are not always employed in the right place"[13] When he died, some obituaries stated that he was the first New Zealand-born member of parliament; this claim appeared, for example, in The New Zealand Herald and The Northern Advocate.

[3][14] However, this was incorrect, as John Sheehan was also a New Zealand-born European, but entered a parliament via an 1872 by-election in the Rodney electorate.

The incumbent, William Reece, declared in December 1900 that he could not serve another term due to other commitments, and shortly afterwards Rhodes received a requisition asking him to be nominated as mayoral candidate.

[28] Rose Rhodes died ten years later by falling 60 feet (18 m) from the window of her son's flat in Chelsea, London.