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Henry Smith Fish was born in Pimlico, London, England, on 15 July 1838 to Mary Ann Passmore and her husband, Henry Smith Fish, a painter. Henry Fish, junior, as he was known for most of his life, received some education…

Gerald Stokell was born on 20 June 1890 at Prebbleton, south of Christchurch, the son of Edmund Stokell, a farmer, and his wife, Jane Eliza Pasche. His whole life was spent at Prebbleton, where he lived in the family…

Fisherman Stewart Smith transformed the ecology of New Zealand’s freshwater lakes and rivers through his many introductions of exotic fish, some of which prospered as pests and permanently damaged native ecosystems. He…

Joseph August Perano was born at Dunedin, New Zealand, on 10 October 1876, the third of eleven children of Agostino Perano and his wife, Susan Williams. Agostino was a Picton-based fisherman of Italian extraction, and…

Bartolomeo (Bartolo) Russo was born probably in 1866 or 1867 on the island of Stromboli, Italy, the eldest son of eight children of Domenico Russo, a farmer, and his wife, Giuseppina Costelano. Activities centred around…

Matiu Rata was a greatly respected and influential Minister of Māori Affairs and of Lands in the third Labour government, and progenitor of the Waitangi Tribunal and the Mana Motuhake movement. He spent much of his life…

Universally known as Johnny or John, Giovanni Cataldo was born at Island Bay, Wellington, on 18 November 1927. He was the fifth child and second son of Francesco Cataldo and his wife, Gelsomina Gargiulo, immigrants from…

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…

Wilfred Stanley Wallis was born at Opawa, Christchurch, on 15 May 1891, the son of Eliza Hart and her husband, John Wallis, a 53-year-old carpenter who hailed originally from London. Stan, as he was generally known,…

Edgar Fraser Stead was born in Christchurch on 22 October 1881, the son of George Gatonby Stead and his wife, Lucie Maria Wilkinson. His father was a grain and export merchant, president of the local chamber of commerce…

John Malcolm was born on 31 August 1873 at Halkirk, Caithness, Scotland, one of four children of John Malcolm, a contractor mason, and his wife, Ann Swanson. His was a well-informed Presbyterian family with plenty of…

Hilda Phillips was one of the best-known and most persistent critics of the Māori land, resource rights and autonomy campaigns of the 1970s and 1980s. She attacked the foundations of Māori grievances against the Crown,…

Joan Wiffen was a self-taught palaeontologist who greatly advanced knowledge of fossil reptiles in New Zealand. Wiffen, who described herself as ‘a rank amateur, a Hawkes Bay housewife in fact, with no scientific…

Alfred de Bathe Brandon was born on 21 July 1883 in Wellington, New Zealand, the son of Alfred de Bathe Brandon, a solicitor, and his wife, Louisa Kebbell. His father was mayor of Wellington from 1893 to 1894 and his…

Duncan MacIntyre was an important figure in the National Party governments that held power for all but three of the 24 years between 1960 and 1984, serving as a cabinet minister for 15 years and as deputy prime minister…

Harvey Turner was born on 11 September 1889 above his father's fruit shop in Karangahape Road, Auckland, the son of Maude Mary Constable and Edward Turner (born Tredgett). He was the third of their nine sons; a daughter…

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…

George Gould was born at Christchurch on 6 April 1865, the son of George Gould and his second wife, Elizabeth Lewis. His father, one of the Canterbury pioneers of 1850, was a leading landowner and businessman, and a…

Hermione Ruth Herrick was the youngest of eight children of Emily Martha Duncan and her husband, Jasper Lucas Herrick, a well-to-do sheepfarmer and an early settler in the Hawke's Bay area. She was born at Forest Gate,…

Noda Asajiro is said to have been born on 17 January 1868 at Tomioka, a small fishing village on the island of Amakusa-Shimo-shima, near Nagasaki, Japan. His father was Noda Kakashi, a carpenter and shipbuilder. His…