This article uses the approaches of critical family history to explore the practices of settler democracy and nation-building in early 20th-century New Zealand and its participation in wider efforts to forge a new British commonwealth on the world stage after 1918. Our attention focuses on John Barr, the author's ancestor. Barr put himself forward as a suitable man for parliamentary office by obscuring details of his humble origins and claiming to be an imperial expert. We consider how Barr's political self-fashioning, which relied on a number of silences, echoed New Zealand's contemporary reimagining of itself as a progressive nation at the vanguard of social reform and democratic governance, a process aided by the influential histories of William Pember Reeves. Barr was subsequently involved in efforts to promote collaboration between British democracies through the activities of the Empire Parliamentary Association in the mid 1920s. The association's attempts to present the British commonwealth as a force for good in international affairs relied on downplaying or ignoring difficult relations with other parts of the empire. Finally, we consider Barr's involvement in New Zealand's troubled efforts to deal with unrest in mandate Samoa, an uncomfortable history suppressed in official and family narratives.
