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Filter biographies using dates, occupations and places related to people's lives.
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1848–1933Coalminer, trade unionist, public servant
John Lomas was born in Disley, Cheshire, England, on 27 February 1848. He was the son of Ann Burgoine and her husband, George Lomas, a collier. Tradition has it that he began his working life in the nearby potteries at about the age of eight, and started his life as a coalminer a year or two...
Story: Lomas, John
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1906–1980Public servant, philatelist, cycling administrator, editor, local historian
Harold David London was born at Kimbolton, Manawatu, on 28 August 1906, the son of Catherine Waugh and her husband, Charles London, a sheepfarmer. Harold attended Valley Road School in Kimbolton (1913–20) and belonged to the local boy scouts. In 1921 he joined the Department of Lands and...
Story: London, Harold David
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1890–1960Teacher, soldier, school inspector, teachers’ college principal, educational administrator
Francis Cecil Lopdell was born on 17 May 1890 at Wrights Bush, Southland, the son of John Francis Lopdell, a timber clerk, and his wife, Teresa Martha Monk. His father had studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and emigrated to Southland in 1884, where he farmed until 1889, then went into...
Story: Lopdell, Francis Cecil
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1842?–1893Guide, interpreter
Lucy Takiora Lord, the only child of Kotiro Hinerangi and William Lord, was born at Kororareka (Russell), in northern New Zealand, and was baptised Lucy Elizabeth on 9 October 1842. Little is known of her childhood. Her mother, Kotiro, taken as a slave by a Nga Puhi war party as they travelled...
Story: Lord, Lucy Takiora
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1866–1954School principal, mountaineer
Margaret Lorimer, daughter of Jessie McLennan and her husband, James Lorimer, a ploughman, was born on 9 June 1866 at Inverness, Scotland. In 1871 her family emigrated on the Glenmark and arrived in Lyttelton, New Zealand, on 1 November. In July 1874 her father bought a section of land in...
Story: Lorimer, Margaret
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1903–1985Writer, weaver
Ida Mary Withers was born in Wellington on 1 May 1903, the daughter of Elizabeth Robins and her husband, John Talbot Withers, a decorator. She grew up at Duvauchelle on Banks Peninsula and was educated at Christchurch Girls’ High School. Her early aspirations centred on becoming a writer. One...
Story: Lough, Ida Mary
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1841–1934Farmer, journalist, politician
Robert Andrew Loughnan was born at Patna, India, probably on 1 September 1841, one of nine children of Frances Eliza Barnes and her husband, Robert James Loughnan, a judge in the service of the British East India Company. The family was Irish in origin, but a forebear had settled in Spain in...
Story: Loughnan, Robert Andrew
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1905–1942Te Āti Awa; rugby player, interpreter, military leader
Eruera (Edward) Te Whiti o Rongomai Love was born on 18 May 1905 at the Top House, the Love family’s homestead in Waikawa Bay in the Marlborough Sounds. He was the second son of seven surviving children of Wī Hapi Pākau Love and his wife, Rīpeka Wharawhara Mātene. His mother was a great-grand-...
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1907–1994Te Āti Awa leader, public servant, sports administrator, local politician, Maori welfare officer, land claimant
A direct descendant of Ngāti Te Whiti and Ngāti Tāwhirikura chiefs who controlled Petone, Ngauranga and Thorndon at the time of the Treaty of Waitangi, Mākere Rangiātea Ralph Love epitomised the tradition of chiefly leadership practised by his family, and was to become the leading elder of...
Story: Love, Mākere Rangiātea Ralph
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1882–1953Te Āti Awa woman of mana, community leader
Rīpeka Wharawhara Love was through descent and marriage kin to Te Āti Awa chiefs whose mana continued to extend over the Wellington region after the arrival of Pākehā settlers in 1840. As an heir to that mana, she was part of an ongoing tradition of leadership, exercising with her husband the...
Story: Love, Rīpeka Wharawhara
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1803–1811?–1869Homemaker, gold courier, shopkeeper
Ann Lovell was born Ann Brown probably some time between 1803 and 1811. Her birthplace and parents' identities are unknown. She married James Lovell on 3 January 1837 at St Peter's Church, Bristol, England. The couple had at least three children.
Ann Lovell, her husband and two...
Story: Lovell, Ann
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1894–1960Artist, art teacher and lecturer
Rata and Colin Lovell-Smith were leading artists of the Canterbury School, a regionalist movement which expressed a growing awareness of a local identity and harboured aspirations for a distinctive New Zealand art. Colin Stuart Smith was born in Christchurch on 26 March 1894, the 10th child and...
Story: Lovell-Smith, Colin Stuart
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1886–1973Linotype operator, shop manager, feminist, community worker
Hilda Kate Smith was born at Riccarton on 10 July 1886, the third daughter of ten children of Mary Jane (Jennie) Cumberworth and her husband, William Sidney Smith, a printer. Later the family changed their name to Lovell-Smith. She enjoyed a semi-rural childhood; her parents kept to a...
Story: Lovell-Smith, Hilda Kate
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1910–1949Athlete, doctor
One of the most celebrated of all Olympic champions, John Edward (Jack) Lovelock was born on 5 January 1910 at Crushington, near Reefton. He was named after his father, John Edward Jones Lovelock, an energetic though ailing English immigrant, who was then superintendent of a goldmine battery....
Story: Lovelock, John Edward
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1876–1934Teacher, social reformer, peace campaigner
Caroline Sarah Howard, known as Sally, was born at Loburn, Canterbury, New Zealand, on 23 March 1876, the fifth of six daughters of Charlotte Thompson and her husband, Charles Smith Howard, a teacher. Sally attended the schools at which her father taught at Woodend and Richmond. She came from a...
Story: Low, Caroline Sarah
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1891–1963Cartoonist, broadcaster
David Alexander Cecil Low earned world fame, and the particular hatred of Adolf Hitler, in the years leading up to the Second World War for his cartoons attacking European fascism and the Nazi regime. Born in Dunedin on 7 April 1891, he was the third son in a family of three sons and a...
Story: Low, David Alexander Cecil
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1912–1963Printer, publisher, typographer, teacher
Robert William Lowry was born at Paeroa on 17 November 1912, the eldest child of Janet (Jessie) Craig Forrest and her Irish husband, Robert William Lowry, a storekeeper, later a farmer and carpenter. In 1926 Bob Lowry was enrolled at Auckland Grammar School, where he was introduced to...
Story: Lowry, Robert William
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1898–1976Cricketer, farmer, racehorse owner
Thomas Coleman Lowry was born at Okawa, near Fernhill, Hawke's Bay, on 17 February 1898, the eldest child of Helen Caroline Watt and her husband, Thomas Henry Lowry, a sheepfarmer. He belonged to a wealthy and prominent New Zealand family: his paternal grandfather, Thomas Lowry, a graduate of...
Story: Lowry, Thomas Coleman
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1915–1993Military and commercial aviator, farmer, tourist operator
Frederick John Lucas was born at Dunedin on 18 August 1915, the second child of Ethel Jean Smith and her husband, Charles Frederick Lucas, a farmer. He attended Tuapeka Mouth School and had one year’s secondary education at Otago Boys’ High School, then returned to the family farm to work....
Story: Lucas, Frederick John
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1925–2000Public servant, conservationist, writer, community worker
Public servant Bing Lucas was responsible for developing New Zealand’s modern national park system from the early 1970s, balancing conservation and recreational values. Under his direction its workforce was professionalised, orderly and unified planning was introduced, and the value of...