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John Logan Campbell is said to have been born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 3 November 1817, the only son of John Campbell and his wife, Catherine Logan, of Ayrshire. His father, as a younger son of Sir James Campbell,…

Mavis Davidson was a significant New Zealand mountaineer, a field ecologist and an international authority on sika deer. She made several notable ascents, leading the first all-women ascent of Aoraki/Mount Cook in 1953…

Joan Donley was a midwife whose advocacy of home births and natural childbirth helped shape modern midwifery in New Zealand. She argued that women should have the right to reject medicalised maternity care, and helped…

Born in Wellington on 3 October 1901, Lettie Annie Skinner was the fourth and youngest child of Sarey Stuart and her husband, Edward Pond Skinner, a post office linesman and former seaman. She grew up in Berhampore,…

Alexander Drennan was born on 16 December 1899 in Greenock, Scotland, to Flora Wingate and her husband, Alexander Drennan, an engine fitter. He began work in the Clyde shipyards and became an active member of the…

May Edith Evelyn Edwards was born in Islington, London, on 2 May 1891, the daughter of Isabella Rose and her husband, James William Edwards, a compositor. She was privately educated, spoke Italian, French and some…

Oscar Garden was born at Tongue, on the north coast of Scotland, on 21 August 1903, the second son and fourth child of Robert Garden, a merchant from Orkney, and his wife, Rebecca Jane Ward, a Salvationist and later…

John Lundon was a not atypical 'public man' in mid nineteenth century New Zealand, a society where political forms and commercial relationships could be worked to personal advantage by those with a sharp eye for the…

Sarah Saunders, born on 26 August 1863 at Waimea South, New Zealand, was the sixth of 10 children of Rhoda Flower and her husband, the radical politician, writer, temperance advocate and champion of women's suffrage…

Pōmare, often known as Pōmare Ngātata, was born in the early nineteenth century; his age was estimated as 30 in 1834. The names of his parents are unknown. He may have been descended from the chief Piritaka of Ngāti…

Te Pehi Kupe was born at Kāwhia. He was the elder son of Toitoi and was descended in the senior line from Toa Rangatira, the eponymous ancestor of Ngāti Toa. His mother was Waipunāhau, a woman of the Ngāti Hinetuhi…

James Keir Baxter was born on 29 June 1926 at Nurse Ross’s maternity home, Dunedin, the second son of Archibald McColl Learmond Baxter, an Otago farmer, and his wife, Millicent Amiel Macmillan Brown. His brother,…

Louise Etiennette Sidonie Sauze was born on 21 April 1902 at Boulogne sur Seine, Paris, the only child of Lucie Jeanne Alphonsine Guerin and her husband, Daniel Paul Louis Sauze, secretary to the sculptor Auguste Rodin…

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…

Dorothy Ida Davies was born at River Bank, Whanganui, on 24 October 1899, the child of English-born parents David Davies, an engineer, and his wife, Martha Naomi Oakden. Dorothy was the seventh of eight children and the…

Matutaera Nihoniho, in his narrative of the fighting on the East Coast, states that he was born on 30 October 1850 at Whareponga, near Waipiro Bay. He belonged to Te Aowera and Te Aitanga-a-Mate of Ngāti Porou. His…

Rāhui Te Kiri was born at Pākiri, on the east coast of Northland, in 1830 or 1831. Her father was Te Kiri, a chief of Ngāti Wai, and of Te Kawerau and Ngāti Manuhiri hapū of Ngāti Whātua. Rāhui's mother was Pepei of…

Doreen Blumhardt was the one of the most important figures in New Zealand’s arts and crafts world in the second half of the twentieth century. Her twin passions, for education and for the arts, were to help…

Patuone was the eldest son of Tapua, leader and tohunga of Ngāti Hao of Hokianga, and the elder brother of Nene. Through his father he was descended from Rāhiri, ancestor of Ngāpuhi; through his mother, Te Kawehau, he…

Jeannie Begg was born on 7 October 1886 at Port Chalmers, one of 10 children of Scottish parents Eliza Johnstone and her husband, John Begg, a tanner and rug-maker. Her close-knit Presbyterian family considered her the…