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Yorkshireman Kenneth Cumberland was the first qualified geographer to teach the subject at university level in New Zealand. He joined the new Department of Geography at Canterbury University College in 1938, and soon…

Te Puea Hērangi was born at Whatiwhatihoe, near Pirongia, on 9 November 1883. Her mother was Tiahuia, daughter of Tāwhiao Te Wherowhero of Ngāti Mahuta, the second Māori King, and his senior wife, Hera. Her father was…

Rewi Alley was born in Springfield, Canterbury, on 2 December 1897 to Frederick James Alley, a schoolmaster, and his wife, Clara Maria Buckingham, who was active in the temperance and women's rights movements. He was…

Oscar Thorvald (Thorwald) Johan Alpers was born on 28 January 1867 at Copenhagen, Denmark, the only son of Søren Thorvald Alpers and his wife, Frederikke Emilie Philipsen. His education began in Copenhagen, but after he…

Charles Nalder Baeyertz was born in Melbourne, Australia, on 15 December 1866, the son of Emilia Louisa Aronson and her husband, Charles Baeyertz, manager of the National Bank of Australasia at Colac, Victoria. After…

William Edward Barnard was born in Carterton, Wairarapa, on 29 January 1886, the son of Ellen Banks and her husband, Charles Leonard Barnard, a watchmaker. He attended Levin School and at 13 began work as an office boy…

Thomas Noel Brodrick (known as Noel) was born to Mary Anne Potts and her husband, Thomas Brodrick, a stock and share broker, at Islington, London, England, on 25 December 1855. He came to New Zealand with his family on…

Russell Stuart Cedric Clark (registered as Cedric Russell Stuart) was born in Christchurch on 27 August 1905, the son of Mary Elizabeth Wyatt and her husband, William Clark, a plumber and tinsmith. He was educated at…

Charles Edward Douglas was born on 1 July 1840 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was the sixth and youngest child of Martha Brook and her husband, James Douglas, an accountant with the Commercial Bank of Scotland. Douglas…

Robert Nettleton Field was born in Bromley, Kent, England, on 3 March 1899. His father, Horace Banks Field, was an insurance clerk and would have liked his eldest son to follow suit, but Robert showed artistic ability…

James Fletcher arrived in New Zealand in 1908 with a bag of tools, a few pounds in his pocket and an unflagging optimism that would help make him one of New Zealand’s most influential industrialists. He was born in…

Henry (Harry) James Hopkins was born on 11 August 1912 in the tiny Western Australian town of Dwellingup, the son of Emma Eliza Watts and her husband, Harold Hopkins, a yard foreman and later forestry department…

Herman Harry Jekeles was born at Dubauti, in the district of Cernauti, Romania (now Chernovtsy, Ukraine), on 5 August 1908. He was the youngest of five children of Jewish parents Mina Rosa Croon (Corne) and her husband…

Louis Albert Johnson was born in Wellington on 27 September 1924, the son of Albert George Johnson, a police constable, and his wife, Louisa Murray Betts. By 1930 the family had moved to Manawatū, where Louis attended…

Frank Langstone was born, probably on 10 December 1881, in Bulls, the fourth of five children. His father, Charles Walter Langston, had various occupations, including that of veterinary surgeon; his mother, Margaret…

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.…

Clutha Nantes Mackenzie was born on 11 February 1895 at Balclutha, the seventh and youngest child of Thomas Noble Mackenzie, an MP and businessman, and his wife, Ida Henrietta Nantes. For a few months in 1912 Thomas was…

James O’Brien belonged to the cluster of Australian labour activists who reached New Zealand in the first decade of the twentieth century, as the nation’s trade union movement was beginning to assert itself industrially…

John (Jack) Ormond was born at Māhia on 18 December 1891; he was commonly known as Tiaki Ōmana. Tiaki was the fourth child of George Canning Ormond, a sheepfarmer, and his wife, Maraea Kiwiwharekete of Ngāti Kahungunu.…

Francis William Redwood was born on 8 April 1839 in the parish of Tixall, Staffordshire, England, the son of Henry Redwood, a farmer, and his wife, Mary Gilbert. The family emigrated to Nelson, New Zealand, on the…