Alice Annie Kenny, one of New Zealand's most assiduous but least-remembered writers, was born on 31 August 1875 at Newcastle (Ngāruawāhia), the third of eight children of Annie Edgecumbe and her husband, Thomas Nepean…
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Basil Malcolm Arthur was born in Timaru on 18 September 1928, the son of George Malcolm Arthur and his wife, Doris Fay Wooding. George was a foreman printer at the Timaru Herald and later a hotel proprietor. In 1946 he…
Thomas Brydone was born on 14 April 1837 at West Linton, Peeblesshire, Scotland, the son of Thomas Brydone, a shepherd, and his wife, Margaret Stewart. When Thomas junior was young the family moved to Blair Athol and he…
Born at Cramond, near Edinburgh, Scotland, on 20 June 1824, David Bruce was the son of a carpenter, also named David Bruce, and his wife, Margaret Robertson. The family moved to Perthshire, where David attended parish…
George Eric Oakes Ramsden was born in Martinborough, Wairarapa, on 1 August 1898, the eldest of three children of Henry Oakes Ramsden, an Englishman, and his New Zealand-born wife, Sophia Jane Harris. Henry Ramsden was…
Martin Gloster Sullivan was born in Auckland on 30 March 1910, the son of Dennis Sullivan, a stationer, and his wife, Ellen Connell. Both parents were from County Kerry, Ireland. After attending Auckland Grammar School…
Born on 18 May 1830 in Cockfield, Durham, England, Hannah White was the first daughter, after four sons, of Jane Angus and her husband, Francis White. On 22 November 1834 the Cockfield blacksmith and his family, now…
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…
Wilfrid Mervyn Lusty was born in Auckland on 25 March 1907, the second of three children of Mary Walsh and her husband, William David Lusty. His mother was a keen writer, his father a journalist who later became a sub-…
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…
Robert James Kerridge was born in Christchurch on 30 October 1901, the son of Frederick Thomas Kerridge, a tram driver, and his wife, Ellen Maude Bell. At the age of five his parents gave him a magic lantern, with which…
Alexander McMinn was born at Dunlady, near Dundonald, County Down, Ireland, on 28 August 1842, the son of Francis McMinn, a doctor, and his wife, Mary Day. Little is known of his early years, but in 1863 he arrived in…
Thyra Avis Mary McNeill was born on 26 March 1910 in Wellington, the eldest of four children of Jane Louisa Beatrice Thompson and her husband, Alan McKenzie McNeill, a journalist. In 1913 the family moved to Auckland,…
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…
Muriel Grace Widdowson was born in Christchurch on 14 June 1892, the third of four children of Emma Matilda Lawrence and her husband, Howell Young Widdowson, a solicitor. The family moved to Dunedin in 1905 when Howell…
Sarah Louise Mathew was baptised on 19 November 1805, at London, England. She was the daughter of Ann Constant Strange and her husband, Richard Mathew. She had two sisters and two brothers, one of whom, George Felton…
James Lister Newman was born in London, England, on 23 April 1903, the son of Kate Beck and her husband, Charles Arnold Newman, a solicitor. He was educated at Shrewsbury school (where he was an excellent classical…
Charles Joseph Rae was born in London, England, probably sometime between 1819 and 1821, the son of Emma Lydyard and her husband, Joseph Rae, a stonemason. Little is known of his early life, but he became a painter by…
According to the age given on his death certificate William Meluish was born probably in 1822 or 1823. An advertisement in the Nelson Examiner in February 1859, soon after he arrived in New Zealand, announced that he…
Annie Lee Rees was born at Beechworth, Victoria, Australia, on 24 April 1864, the eldest of seven children of Hannah (Annie) Elizabeth Staite and her husband, William Lee Rees, a congregational minister who was…