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Te Rei Hanataua was the leading chief of Tangahoe hapū of Ngāti Ruanui. He was the son of Wakataparuru and Hineao; his ancestry extends back to Turi and Rongorongo. He was born probably early in the nineteenth century,…

Piupiu Te Wherowhero was born, probably in 1886 or 1887, at Whatiwhatihoe, Waikato. She was the daughter of Te Wherowhero Tāwhiao of Ngāti Mahuta, the third child and second son of the second Māori King, Tāwhiao…

Ramai Hayward was a pioneering documentary and feature film-maker. She trained as a photographer in the mid-1930s and had established her own studio in Auckland when she starred in Rudall Hayward’s landmark film…

Sir Hugh Kawharu, a Ngāti Whātua rangatira, a distinguished anthropologist, and an eloquent statesman, was held in high regard by Māori and non-Māori alike. He was a prominent leader of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei in central…

Rēweti Tūhorouta Kōhere was born on 11 April 1871 at Orutua, Horoera, near East Cape. He was the first of five children of Hone Hiki Kōhere and Henarata Peretō, the daughter of Umutahi, who belonged to Te Whanau-a-…

John O’Shea occupies a decisive position in the development of the New Zealand film industry. He was responsible for the only feature production in New Zealand between 1940 and the early 1970s, and singlehandedly…

Harry Scott was a psychology educator and researcher whose work on the effects of isolation evolved from his own experiences as an imprisoned conscientious objector during the Second World War. He was a significant…

Roderick David Finlayson was born in Devonport, Auckland, on 26 April 1904. His father, John Maclennan Finlayson, was an accounts clerk in the Bank of New South Wales in Auckland. Because of gambling debts he absconded…

John Te Herekiekie Grace was typical of a group of Māori leaders that emerged in the 1950s. They represented a second generation of well-connected men who prided themselves on their loyalty to the Crown and their…

Michael Rotohiko Jones was born at Poro-o-Tarao in the King Country on 14 September 1895, the son of Daniel Lewis, a European storekeeper, and Paretekōrae Poutama of Ngāti Maniapoto. Sometime after the birth of Michael'…

Alan Edward Mulgan was born on 18 May 1881 at George Vesey Stewart's Irish Protestant settlement in Katikati, in the Bay of Plenty. He was the son of Frances Maria Johnston and her husband, Edward Ker Mulgan, a farmer…

Paratene Ngata was born at Ahikouka, near Waiomatatini, on the East Coast, possibly in September 1849. His father was Wiremu Karaka Te Ito, of Reporua, and his mother was Hera Te Ihi, known also as Ruataupare. He was…

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…

The prolific publisher and writer Alexander Wyclif Reed was born on 7 March 1908 in Ponsonby, Auckland, the only child of Alexander John Reed, a Methodist minister, and his wife, Julia Carter. The Reed family was hard-…

Hānara Tangiāwhā Te Ōhakī Reedy (commonly known as Arnold Reedy) was born on 16 August 1903 at Whareponga, a somnolent seaside village on the East Coast of the North Island. He was the eldest of 10 children of Materoa…

Arthur John Seamer was born in Tongala, Victoria, Australia, on 10 June 1878, the fourth child of William Seamer, a farmer, and his wife, Jane Matilda Townley. His father had worked on goldfields in California and…

Ngāwaka Taurua was a member of Pakakohe, a hapū of Ngāti Ruanui who lived at Hukatere, south of the Pātea River in South Taranaki. The names of his parents are not recorded. He also had connections with another Ngāti…

Tāmihana Te Rauparaha, known also as Katu, was the son of the great Ngāti Toa leader Te Rauparaha and his fifth and senior wife, Te Ākau of Tūhourangi. He was born at Pukearuhe, a Ngāti Tama pā in northern Taranaki,…

Maata Te Taiawatea Rangitūkehu was born in 1848 or 1849, probably near Lake Tarawera, where she was brought up as a puhi (a treasured virgin until marriage) by her mother's people of Tūhourangi, a branch of Te Arawa.…

Hōri Tūpaea was born probably in 1879 or 1880 in the vicinity of Te Hauke, Hawke's Bay, the second child and eldest son of Arihi Te Nahu by her second marriage, to Hāmiora Tūpaea. Arihi was the eldest child of Karanama…