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Hans Heinrich Suter, known in New Zealand as Henry Suter, was born on 9 March 1841 near Zürich, Switzerland. He was the son of Heinrich Suter, a silk manufacturer, and his wife, Susanna Mahler. After training in Zürich…

Norman Hargrave Taylor was born on 9 June 1900 in Auckland, the son of Herbert Samuel Hargrave Taylor, a gum sorter and former armourer, and his wife, Ellen Medhurst. He attended Richmond Road School in Grey Lynn, and…

John Bell Thomson was baptised on 5 February 1835 at Westminster, London, England. He was the oldest of four children born to Eliza Willcox and her husband, Adam Thomson, an architect and surveyor. John Bell Thomson…

Helen Wilson achieved recognition as a leading figure in the Women's Division of the New Zealand Farmers' Union and, in later years, as a writer. She was born Helen Mary Ostler at Oamaru, New Zealand, on 4 May 1869, the…

Thomas Kendall was baptised on 13 December 1778 at North Thoresby, Lincolnshire, England. He was probably the fifth child (of seven) of Susanna Surflit and her husband, Edward Kendall, a small copyhold farmer. He…

The Coates brothers, Edward and Thomas, who sailed into the Waitematā Harbour on 19 October 1866 aboard the Winterthur, came from a long-established Herefordshire gentry family. As younger sons of a large family they…

Ernest Alfred Adams was born in Wellington, Somerset, England, on 23 November 1892, the son of a master baker, Herbert John Adams, and his wife, Eliza Ann Bell. He was educated at Devon County School and Taunton School…

A pioneering exponent of the New Zealand comic vernacular yarn in his 'Me and Gus' and other stories, Frank Sheldon Anthony was born at Matawhero, near Gisborne, on 13 December 1891, the son of Frank Sheldon Anthony and…

Allen (Allan) Bell was born at Southbridge, Canterbury, New Zealand, on 14 February 1870. He was the son of Allen Bell, a farmer, and his wife, Mary Mathews. Allen senior was apparently forced off his land in the…

Francis Oswald Bennett (always known as ‘Os’) was born on 19 February 1898 in Christchurch, the son of William Francis Bennett and his wife, Rose Maria Harrow. His childhood was spent on his parents’ small farm at…

Marmaduke Bethell was born at Maitai Valley, Nelson, on 18 November 1876, the only son of Isabella Anne Lillie and her husband, Richard Bethell, a lawyer and sheepfarmer of Burnham, Canterbury. In 1877 Richard Bethell…

Thomas Lindsay Buick was born in Oamaru on 13 May 1865, the son of John Walker Buick, a tailor, and his wife, Margaret Petrie, both of whom had arrived at Port Chalmers from England in 1860. Lindsay was educated at…

Margaret Mary Butler was born in Greymouth on 30 April 1883, the youngest of four children of Irish parents Edward Butler, the Grey County engineer, and his wife, Mary Delaney. After Edward's death in August 1884 the…

Edith Marion Collier was born on 28 March 1885 at Whanganui, the eldest of 10 children of Eliza Catherine Parkes and her husband, Henry Collier, a music shop proprietor and substantial landowner. The Colliers were a…

Keith Elliott was born (auspiciously) on 25 April 1916 in the backblocks settlement of Āpiti, north-east of Feilding, the eighth of nine children of Thomas Frank Capper Elliott, a farmer, and his wife, Ethel Marie…

Rāniera Ellison was born on 13 February 1915 at Ōtākou on the Otago Peninsula, one of nine children of Te Iwi (David) Herehere Merekihereka Hape Ellison, a farmer, and his wife, Horīwia (Olivia) Karetai. Of Ngāi Tahu…

David Patrick Fisher was born in Dublin, Ireland, probably between 1849 and 1852. He was the son of Elizabeth McLeod and her husband, James Fisher, the government printer, both Scottish. About 1859 his parents moved to…

Rudolf Gopas was born on 13 December 1913 in Siluté, near Memel (Klaipeda), then part of Germany, the son of Pranas Gopas, a machinery merchant, and his wife, Marte Plauschin. He is often regarded as an expressionist…

Leonard Poulter Leary was born at Palmerston North on 24 March 1891 into a comfortable, middle-class, Methodist family. He was the second of four sons of Florence Lucy Giesen and her husband, Richard Leary, a chemist…

According to family sources John Martin was born on 11 November 1822 at Moneymore, County Londonderry, Ireland. He was the son of John Martin, a clergyman who was later a farmer, and his second wife, Sarah Espie. There…