Walter Hippolyte Pilliet JP (8 February 1840 – 7 November 1885) was a 19th-century Member of Parliament in Christchurch, New Zealand.

[1] Back in Wellington in 1864, he met his acquaintance Coutts Crawford, who suggested he accompany him to Havelock in the Marlborough Sounds, where gold had recently been discovered.

The Government steamer St Kilda left Wellington on 15 December 1867 under Captain Fox, but the ship struck rocks at Kaikōura the following day in calm weather.

On 2 and 3 February 1868, there was heavy rain and a severe gale in the area, causing floods "greater than have ever been known by the oldest settlers".

That position was disestablished the following year and he became private secretary to Sir Donald Mclean, based in Auckland, handling his correspondence and keeping him informed of political news.

McLean proved an awkward man to work for, and when the Resident Magistracy of Akaroa became vacant in 1870, he applied for and was granted the position.

Pilliet had two enjoyable years on the Peninsula, where he was popular with both the English and French settler families due to his knowledge of languages.

Pilliet married again to a daughter of Ebenezer and Agnes Hay, a very well known Banks Peninsula family, but happiness was once more short-lived.

Pilliet's temper again had been his undoing; he was dismissed from the Magistracy, after a conviction for assault was upheld in the Lyttelton Magistrate's Court.

On 23 May 1873, he had punched the Christchurch architect Samuel Farr during an altercation on the Lyttelton wharf at Dampier's Bay.

[11] Following the resignation of Robert Heaton Rhodes from his Akaroa seat in the New Zealand parliament, William Montgomery and Pilliet contested the 20 April 1874 by-election.

The select committee accepted that the breach was inadvertent and Montgomery stood for re-election in the 10 August 1874 by-election.

[1][30] It was after his 1884 parliamentary defeat that he moved again into political reporting for the daily press, and made arrangements to bring his young family to resettle them in Wellington.

His second wife, Agnes Hay, left the colony after a few years for the United Kingdom, leaving her step children with relatives in New Zealand.