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Marie Bell was an educator and tireless campaigner for the rights of both children and parents, challenging educational orthodoxies to ensure more child-centred practices and an environment more supportive of parents.…

Charles Christopher Bowen is said to have been born at Milford, County Mayo, Ireland, on 29 August 1830. He was the elder son of Charles Bowen and his wife, Georgiana Lambert. The Bowens were an Anglo-Irish gentry…

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…

Thomas Edward Taylor was born on 16 June 1862 in Kirton in Lindsey, Lincolnshire, England, the son of Edward Taylor and his wife, Anne Turner. His father had been in the navy and the police force before the family moved…

Alfred Walter Averill was born on 7 October 1865 at Castle Church, Staffordshire, England, the son of a pharma­cist, Henry Alcock Averill, and his wife, Sarah Ellen Wootton. He was educated at King Edward VI Grammar…

James Walter Chapman Taylor was born in London, England, on 24 June 1878, the son of Theodore Chapman Taylor and his wife, Ada Thomas. Theodore was an agricultural graduate and quantity surveyor and Ada a teacher,…

Edward John von Dadelszen is among those who shaped New Zealand's national institutions, but even at the height of his public service career more attention was paid to his brief, albeit romantic, adventures as a…

Joseph McMullen Dargaville, the son of Anderson Dargaville, a physician, and his wife, Eliza McMullen, was born in Cork, County Cork, Ireland, and baptised there on 27 June 1837. His paternal ancestors were Huguenots…

Johann Karl Ernst Dieffenbach is said to have been born at Giessen in the Grand Duchy of Hesse on 27 January 1811. The son of a respected Protestant cleric and professor of theology at the university of Giessen, Ernst…

George Edgecumbe was born on 4 January 1845 at Chippenham, Wiltshire, England, the son of Martha Eyles and her husband, Henry Edgecumbe, a grocer and later a brewer. After his mother's death from smallpox in 1856,…

Hikairo is thought to have been born in the late eighteenth century, probably between 1780 and 1790, probably at Puhirua or Te Awahou, on the northern shores of Rotorua. He became leader of Ngāti Rangiwewehi, one of the…

Alexander Wilson Hogg was born at Glasgow, Scotland, on 9 February 1841, the son of Donald Hogg, a dyer, and his wife, Janet Dunn, both of highlander stock. Alexander's first school was one the dyeworks provided for its…

John McGlashan was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 7 November 1802, the son of John McGlashan, a furniture dealer, and his wife, Mary Fraser. John attended Edinburgh High School and the University of Edinburgh,…

Edwin Mitchelson was the son of Alexander Mitchelson and his wife, Johanna Fitzpatrick, who arrived at Kaipara Harbour, New Zealand, from Sydney, Australia, on the Hannah Watson in April 1840. They settled at…

Frederick Joseph Moss was born at Longwood, St Helena, probably in 1827 or 1828. He was the son of Sarah Britton and her husband, a farmer whose first name is unknown. Frederick was educated at the head school of the…

David Limond Murdoch was born in Ayr, Scotland, on 2 November 1825, the son of Agnes Todd and her husband, Alexander Murdoch, a lawyer. On 3 January 1848 at Glasgow David Murdoch married Eliza Murdoch. The couple…

Alfred Kingcome Newman was born at Madras, India, on 27 April 1849 to Alfred Newman, commander of an East India Company ship, and his wife, Isabella Soames. The family emigrated to New Zealand in 1853 and farmed the 13,…

Edna Bertha Pearce was born at Christchurch on 26 March 1906, the daughter of Lucy Elliott Allison and her husband, Ernest Walter Pearce, a farmer. She attended St Albans School until, aged seven, she moved with her…

In 1936 Rosemary Rees described herself, with a mixture of pride and self-deprecation, as 'the "best selling’’ New Zealand author'. This claim may have been debatable, but there was no questioning her international…

Andrew Sinclair was born at Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, on 13 April 1794, the son of John Sinclair, a weaver, and his wife, Agnes Renfrew. He never married. From 1814 to 1818 Sinclair studied medicine and surgery…