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Whetū Tirikātene-Sullivan was New Zealand’s first Māori woman cabinet minister, its longest-serving woman MP, and a staunch advocate in Parliament for Māori interests. An accomplished academic, social worker, designer,…

George French Angas was born on 25 April 1822 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, the fourth child and eldest son of George Fife Angas and his wife, Rosetta French. George Fife Angas had taken over his father's thriving…

Margaret Mary Butler was born in Greymouth on 30 April 1883, the youngest of four children of Irish parents Edward Butler, the Grey County engineer, and his wife, Mary Delaney. After Edward's death in August 1884 the…

Annabella Mary (known as Mary) Webster was born on 19 May 1864 at Mangungu on the Hokianga Harbour, one of twins born to William Webster, an interpreter and sawmiller, and his wife, Annabella Gillies, whose mother was…

John Hobbs was born on 22 February 1800, at St Peter's, Thanet, Kent, England. He was the son of Elizabeth Palmer and her husband, Richard Hobbs, a coachbuilder and maker of agricultural implements, who had been…

Leonard Poulter Leary was born at Palmerston North on 24 March 1891 into a comfortable, middle-class, Methodist family. He was the second of four sons of Florence Lucy Giesen and her husband, Richard Leary, a chemist…

Haane Te Rauawa Manahi was born in Ōhinemutu, Rotorua, on 28 September 1913, the youngest son of Neti Mariana Insley and her husband, Manahi Ngākahawai Te Rauawa. Haane’s father belonged to Te Arawa and Ngāti Raukawa…

T. T. Rāwhiti was closely associated, for some 30 years, with demands for Māori autonomy and self-sufficiency. He was born in Kāwhia in about 1851, and later lived at Tauwhare, near Cambridge. He had affiliations with…

Hēmi (James) Tautari was born, probably in 1814 or 1815, at Paihia in the Bay of Islands. His father may have been Te Koki, the principal chief of Ngāpuhi at Paihia and brother of Hongi Hika's mother, Tuhikura, of Ngāti…

William Webster was born in 1815 at Portland, Maine, in the United States, and arrived in New Zealand in March 1835. It has been suggested that he absconded from a whaling ship but he may have arrived by way of Sydney,…

J.C. Sturm, also known as Te Kare Papuni and Jacquie Baxter, was a pioneering writer of poetry and short stories. Long overshadowed by her first husband, the poet James K. Baxter, Jacquie emerged in later life as a…

Charles Frederick Goldie was born in Auckland, New Zealand, on 20 October 1870. The second of eight children born to David Goldie and his wife, Maria Partington, he was second-generation colonial on both sides. His…

Hōne Riiwi Tōia was born probably sometime between 1858 and 1860 at Waimate North in the Bay of Islands. His grandfather was a Jewish trader called Levy (Riiwi), who, in different family traditions, jumped ship at…

Peter Buck claimed to have been born in 1880, but a more likely date is sometime in October 1877 as recorded in his primary school register. For most of his life he believed that Ngārongo-ki-tua was his natural mother.…

William Daniel Barrett was born on 27 October 1878 at Riverton, Southland, the fourth of eleven children of Louisa Hunter and her husband, Henry Barrett, a labourer. His paternal grandparents were Richard Barrett, a…

William Darby Brind was born in England, the eldest child of William Brind and his wife, Elizabeth. According to family information he was born in 1794. He was baptised on 28 July that year at St Philip's parish,…

Thomas Buddle was born at Durham, England, probably on 24 December 1812, the son of Matthew Buddle, a cordwainer, from a prominent Anglican family, and his wife, Mary Anderson. At the age of 17 Thomas joined the…

Ākenehi Hei, occasionally called Agnes by her Pākehā employers, was born probably in 1877 or 1878 into a leading Te Whakatōhea and Te Whānau-ā-Apanui family at Te Kaha, Bay of Plenty. Her mother was Maria Nīkora; her…

In 1902 Wiremu Hoani Taua (also known as William Johnson or Johnston) was appointed the first Māori head teacher of a native school and, almost certainly, of any Department of Education primary school. He was to lead…

Described as the 'smartest Māori woman it has been my lot to meet' by an investigating policeman, Puna Hīmene Te Rangimārie was one of the first to be prosecuted under the Tohunga Suppression Act 1907. Little is known…