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Yorkshireman Kenneth Cumberland was the first qualified geographer to teach the subject at university level in New Zealand. He joined the new Department of Geography at Canterbury University College in 1938, and soon…

John Thomas Paul was born near Boort, Victoria, Australia, on 16 August 1874, the son of Mary Tomkins and her husband, Daniel Fisher Paul, who farmed a small selection and worked as a railway employee. Tom served his…

Kelly Tarlton was a pioneer in underwater exploration and a successful tourism entrepreneur. Energetic and innovative, he adapted a passion for scuba diving into a successful career as an explorer of shipwrecks and…

The distinguished writer and journalist Christine Cole Catley was one of New Zealand’s leading independent publishers of the late twentieth century. She was co-founder of the Parents Centre movement in the 1950s, and an…

Wiremu Tako Ngātata, usually known as Wī Tako, was born around the beginning of the nineteenth century at Pukeariki pā in Taranaki. His father was Ngātata-i-te-rangi of Te Āti Awa and his mother Whetowheto of Ngāti…

Les Cleveland made important contributions to New Zealand’s visual, musical, literary and academic culture. There were overlaps, continuities and connections between all his diverse interests, which ranged from the…

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.…

Henry Edmund Holland was born on 10 June 1868 at Ginninderra, New South Wales, the second child of farmer Edward Holland and his wife Mary Chaplin. Harry, as he was known, attended a local elementary school until he was…

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…

James Macandrew, the son of a merchant, Colin Macandrew, and his wife, Barbara Johnston, was baptised in Aberdeen, Scotland, on 18 May 1819. Little is known of his early life; he is said to have attended Ayr Academy and…

Sometime in May 1845 the five-year-old John McKenzie was woken by his father before dawn and marched off on a 16-mile walk to the small Presbyterian church at Croick in eastern Ross-shire, Scotland. On the way the young…

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…

Murray Ball created the phenomenally successful ‘Footrot Flats’ cartoon strip, which appeared in more than 120 newspapers worldwide during the 1980s and 1990s and spawned a stage musical, a movie and a wide array of…

Walter Nash was born in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, England, on 12 February 1882, the fifth of six children of Alfred Arthur Nash and his wife, Amelia Randle. The family was poor and Alfred was often drunk. A rug…

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…

James Carroll was born at Wairoa, northern Hawke's Bay, probably on 20 August 1857, one of eight children of Joseph Carroll and his Ngāti Kahungunu wife, Tapuke, a woman of mana. His father, a Sydney-born Irishman, had…

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…

William Pember Reeves was born at Lyttelton on 10 February 1857, three weeks after his parents arrived in New Zealand. He was later to say that, although he was born a New Zealander, he only just managed it. His parents…

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…

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…