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Taurekareka (Tau) Hēnare was a Ngāpuhi leader noted for his commitment to the welfare, land rights, culture and education of his people. His first name was that of a Ngāti Whātua and Ngāpuhi ancestor, and he was closely…

Charles Ernest Hercus was born in Dunedin on 13 June 1888 to Elizabeth Jane Proctor, a native of Toronto, Canada, and her husband, Peter Hercus, a Scots-born warehouseman who had come to New Zealand as a child. Hercus…

John Henry Rushworth Jellicoe was born at Southampton, England, on 5 December 1859, the son of John Henry Jellicoe, a master in the merchant service, and his wife, Lucy Henrietta Keele. At the age of six he attended a…

Henry Greathead Rex Mason was born on 3 June 1885 in Wellington, the son of Harry Brooks Mason, a compositor from Cape Town, and his Australian-born wife, Henrietta Emma Rex, who helped to form the Women's Social and…

David Gervan McMillan was born in New Plymouth on 26 February 1904, the eldest of three children of Annie Gertrude Pearce and her husband, David McMillan, who had a dairy farm near Stratford. Gervan was dux of Stratford…

Eliza Ellen (known as Ellen) Melville was born on 13 May 1882 at Tokatoka, Northern Wairoa, New Zealand, the third of seven children of Alexander Melville, a boatbuilder and farmer, and his wife, Eliza Annand Fogerty,…

Nicholas Moore was a well-known figure in Masterton for 55 years and was the oldest priest in New Zealand when he died in 1985 at the age of 98. He was born in Kilmoganny, County Kilkenny, Ireland, on 16 September 1887…

Walter Reginald Brook Oliver was born in Launceston, Tasmania, on 7 September 1883, the son of Henry Oliver and his wife, Josephine Caroline Stevenson. The family came to New Zealand in March 1896, settling first near…

Louis Wellington Parore was born at Te Houhanga marae, Dargaville, on 26 December 1888. According to tradition, he was the first of his people born in a European-style house and was known to his family as Te Rūma (the…

Haami Tokouru Rātana, usually known as Toko, was born at Parewanui, on the west bank of the Rangitīkei River, on 21 July 1894. He was the eldest of seven children of Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana and his first wife, Te…

Willis Thomas Goodwin (Bill) Airey was born in Auckland on 7 January 1897. His father, Walter Henry Airey, an inspector of schools, had died three months earlier, leaving a widow, Margaret Avon McDonald, and seven…

Frederick Baker was born at Whauwhaukauri, Hokianga, on 19 June 1908, the son of John Francis (Frank) Baker and his wife, Jane Robinson. His father was a bushman but subsequently became a dairy farmer. Baker was of…

John Holland Baker was born on 4 December 1841 at Chilcomb, Hampshire, England, one of 10 children of Catherine Mathias and her husband, Thomas Fielding Baker, an Anglican clergyman. He was raised by his grandmother for…

Mary Ursula Bethell was born at Horsell, Surrey, England, on 6 October 1874, the first of three children of Isabella Anne Lillie and her husband, Richard Bethell, a barrister. Both parents had lived in New Zealand in…

George Fowlds was born at Fenwick, Ayrshire, Scotland, on 15 September 1860. He was the youngest son of Agnes Craig and her husband, Matthew Fowlds, a Covenanter descendant and one of the last of the hand-loom weavers,…

Eric Albert Johnson was born in Suva, Fiji, on 8 November 1908 to an Australian father, Frank Johnson, and his Fijian-born wife, Mary Lee; sometime in the 1940s Eric assumed the name Lee-Johnson. His ancestry was never…

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…

Golan Haberfield Maaka, also known as Te Kōrana, was born on 4 April 1904 on Ōruawharo station, Takapau, Hawke's Bay. His father was Aritaku Maaka, of Ngāti Hikatoa of Waimārama and Ngāi Tahu of Takapau, hapū of Ngāti…

Campbell Percy McMeekan was born on 29 July 1908 at Otaki, the only son of four children of Alexander Nelson McMeekan, a baker and shopkeeper, and his wife, Ellen (Helen) Kime. His paternal family were Irish, and on his…

Nikola Nobilo was one of New Zealand’s most successful winemakers of the 1960s and 1970s, building a few vines on his Huapai farm into a winemaking dynasty. With his sons, Nobilo was one the leaders of the transition…