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One of the great international aviators of the 1930s, Jean Gardner Batten was born on 15 September 1909 in Rotorua, the only daughter of a dentist, Frederick Harold Batten, and his wife, Ellen (Nellie) Blackmore. She…

John Cawte Beaglehole was born in his parents’ house in Hopper Street, Wellington, on 13 June 1901, the second of four sons of Jane Butler and her husband, David Ernest Beaglehole. David was a serious-minded young man…

Mahuta Tāwhiao of Ngāti Mahuta was born at Whatiwhatihoe, Waikato, probably in 1854 or 1855. He was the eldest son of Tāwhiao, the second Māori King, and his senior wife, Hera. She was the daughter of Tāmati Ngāpora (…

W.H. (Bill) Oliver was one of New Zealand’s most eminent twentieth-century historians. He gained distinction as a scholar of British and New Zealand history and was part of a tradition of poet-historians, with five…

George Augustus Selwyn was born on 5 April 1809 at Hampstead, England, the second son of William Selwyn, a noted constitutional lawyer, and his wife, Laetitia Frances Kynaston. His education began at a preparatory…

Ian Cross was a distinguished novelist, journalist, editor, broadcaster and administrator, best-known as the author of The God boy (1957), one of the finest and most enduringly popular New Zealand novels of the…

Early life Thomas Allen Monro Curnow (known as Allen) was born in Timaru on 17 June 1911, the second of three sons of Tremayne Monro Curnow, an Anglican clergyman, and his wife, Jessamine Towler Gambling. On his…

M. K. Joseph was a novelist, poet, and literary academic of the 1940s–1970s, best known for the powerful short novel, A soldier’s tale. Outwardly conservative, with a professorship, scholarly publications, a stable…

Māui Wiremu Piti Naera Pōmare was one of the generation of Māori leaders educated at Te Aute College in the 1890s who were to assume positions of leadership in both the Māori and Pākehā worlds. His birthplace was Pāhau…

Wolfgang Rosenberg was an influential economist and public intellectual in New Zealand during the second half of the twentieth century. A refugee from Nazi Germany, he spent much of his working life as a lecturer in…

Early life and education David Lange was born in Ōtāhuhu, Auckland, on 4 August 1942. A fourth-generation New Zealander, he was the son of Eric Roy Lange, a medical practitioner, and his wife, Phoebe Fysh Reid. The…

Te Rangihaeata, born probably in the 1780s in the Kāwhia district, was a leader of Ngāti Toa. His hapū included Ngāti Kimihia to which he was kin through his mother, Waitohi, who was the elder sister of Te Rauparaha.…

Ranginui Walker was a highly influential writer, public commentator, community leader and activist who played a significant role in the cultural and political renaissance of Māori in the 1970s and 1980s. He contributed…

In spite of her own conviction that 'I shall not be "fashionable" long', Katherine Mansfield has acquired an international reputation as a writer of short stories, poetry, letters, journals and reviews. Her work has…

Edward William Stafford was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 23 April 1819, eldest son of Berkeley Buckingham Smith Stafford of Maine, County Louth, Ireland, and his wife, Anne Tytler. Stafford grew up in the leisured,…

Peter Fraser was born on 28 August 1884 at the highland village of Fearn, Ross-shire, Scotland, the son of Donald Fraser, a master shoemaker, and his wife, Isabella McLeod. Peter's attendance at the local school was…

Michael King was New Zealand’s most popular late twentieth-century historian. His best work combined the research-based scholarship of a historian with the fluent accessible style of a journalist. His output was…

Tītokowaru was born near Ōkaiawa, in South Taranaki, probably about 1823. He belonged to Ngāti Manuhiakai hapū of Ngā Ruahine, a section of Ngāti Ruanui. He traced his descent from Turi and Rongorongo, and from…

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…

Paul Holmes was New Zealand’s best-known and most influential late twentieth-century broadcaster, straddling the line between serious current affairs presenter and entertainer. He succeeded in the three mass media…