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Paraire Karaka Paikea was the great-grandson of Paikea Te Hekeua, a prominent chief of Te Uri-o-Hau and Ngāti Whatua. His father was Karaka Eramiha Paikea, and his mother was Tuhi Harirū Maihi, daughter of Wereti and…

Robin Williams was an influential administrator who helped shape New Zealand’s late twentieth century public service. His ability as a mathematician earned him a place in the Manhattan Project in California, part of the…

Johannes Carl Andersen was born on 14 March 1873 at Klakring, a village in Jutland, Denmark, the second child of Jørgen Andersen, a watchmaker, and his wife, Johanne Marie Hansen. The family arrived at Lyttelton, New…

Ormond Edward Burton was born in Auckland on 16 January 1893, the son of Mary Alice Beatrice Winn and her husband, Robert Burton, a carter, who was later a market gardener. As a child Ormond learnt the value of hard…

Maata Horomona was New Zealand’s first movie star, as the leading lady in films by French filmmaker Gaston Méliès. Méliès claimed to have discovered her, but by 1912, when she appeared in three of his films, Maata was…

Iris Guiver Wilkinson, better known as Robin Hyde, her chosen name as poet and writer, was born on 19 January 1906 in Cape Town, South Africa. She was the second daughter of Edith Ellinor (Nelly) Butler, an Australian…

Jessie Mackay was born on 15 December 1864 at Double Hill station, above the Rakaia Gorge in Canterbury, New Zealand. She was the eldest child of Elizabeth Ormiston and her husband, Robert Mackay, a shepherd who managed…

William Mason was a prominent mid-twentieth-century New Zealand artist and designer best known for his riotous, high-style handprinted interior textiles, and for wallpapers that helped  radically reform the way New…

John Alexander McCullough was born at Belfast, Ireland, on 17 January 1860, the eldest of five children. He was the son of Sarah Davison and her husband, William John McCullough, a seaman, staunch unionist and Orangeman…

John Andrew Millar was born on 8 July 1855 in India, and baptised at Jullundur, Punjab, on 6 August 1855. He was the eldest son of Eliza Sarah Hawthorne and her husband, John Craufurd Millar, a lieutenant and later…

A Māori Battalion veteran and the first Māori to qualify in accountancy, Hēnare Ngata became an important Māori leader in the 1950s after the death of his father, Sir Apirana Ngata. Like his father he was closely…

Pineāmine Taiapa was born at Tikitiki on the East Coast on 6 June 1901. His mother, Maraea Te Iritawa, and his father, Tāmati Taiapa, were of Te Whānau-a-Hinerupe, a hapū of Ngāti Porou. His mother was also connected to…

Richard Taylor was born at Letwell, Yorkshire, England, on 21 March 1805, one of four children of Richard Taylor and his wife, Catherine Spencer. He was baptised two days later, in the neighbouring parish of Throapham.…

Apirana Turupa Ngata was born at Te Araroa on the East Coast on 3 July 1874. He had connections with the leaders of Ngāti Porou. His hapū included Te Whānau-a-Te Ao, Ngāti Rangi, Te Whānau-a-Karuai and Ngāti Rākairoa.…

Doreen Blumhardt was the one of the most important figures in New Zealand’s arts and crafts world in the second half of the twentieth century. Her twin passions, for education and for the arts, were to help…

William Colenso was born probably on 17 November 1811 and was baptised on 13 December 1811 in Penzance, Cornwall, England. He was the eldest child of Samuel May Colenso, a saddler and town councillor of Penzance, and…

Marti Friedlander was one of New Zealand’s most outstanding twentieth-century photographers. Her work was massively influential both in the development of photography as an artistic practice in New Zealand and in the…

Mina Louise McKenzie was a key player in New Zealand’s museums sector from the 1970s to the 1990s. As curator, and later director, of Manawatū Museum, she pioneered a model of museum practice which placed primacy on…

Āperahama Taonui was the visionary leader of Ngāpuhi hapū Te Popoto of Utakura in the upper Hokianga, and a founder of the Kotahitanga movement, which evolved into the Māori parliaments of the 1890s. He was born, by his…

Clarence Edward Beeby was born at Meanwood, Leeds, Yorkshire, on 16 June 1902, the second son of Anthony Beeby and his wife, Alice Rhodes. His forebears on both sides were working class but his father had been…