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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…

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…

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…

Beatrice Hill Tinsley was an English-born, New Zealand-educated, theoretical astrophysicist and cosmologist. Through her research in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, she proved that the universe was infinite…

Hēnare Te Raumoa Huatahi Balneavis was born at Muriwai, Poverty Bay, according to family information on 26 March 1880, the only son of John Henry Balneavis, a surveyor, and his wife, Rina Matewai Wilson. His special…

Archibald McColl Learmond Baxter was born at Saddle Hill, Otago, New Zealand, on 13 December 1881, one of eight children of John Baxter, a farm labourer, and his wife, Mary McColl. Both the Baxters and the McColls were…

Alexander William Bickerton was born at Alton, Hampshire, England, on 7 January 1842, the second son of Sophia Matilda Eames and her husband, Richard Bickerton, a builder's clerk and draughtsman. He was baptised in the…

Thomas Noel Brodrick (known as Noel) was born to Mary Anne Potts and her husband, Thomas Brodrick, a stock and share broker, at Islington, London, England, on 25 December 1855. He came to New Zealand with his family on…

Henry Samuel Chapman was born in Kennington, London, England, on 21 July 1803, the son of Henry Chapman, a civil servant in the Barrack Department, and his wife, Ann Hart Davies. He was educated in schools at Bromley,…

Gordon Herriot Cunningham was born at Heriot, West Otago, on 27 August 1892, one of seven children of Helen Donaldson Herriot and her husband, Joseph Watson Cunningham, manager of a sheep station at nearby Moa Flat. He…

Frederick Widdowson Doidge was born at Cootamundra, New South Wales, on 26 February 1884, the son of Edwin Doidge and his wife, Mary Lucy Chilcott. His father had been a journalist in Thames, New Zealand, before…

James Fletcher arrived in New Zealand in 1908 with a bag of tools, a few pounds in his pocket and an unflagging optimism that would help make him one of New Zealand’s most influential industrialists. He was born in…

Archibald Brewster Grant was born in Millerton, Buller, on 24 July 1904, the son of Ferguson Hamilton Grant, a miner and railway worker, and his wife, Jane (Jeannie) Brewster. From his parents Archie inherited a…

Herbert Ernest Hart was born in New Zealand at Taratahi, near Carterton, Wairarapa, on 13 October 1882. He was the son of Mary Ann Reid and her husband, William Hart, a labourer. Between 1887 and 1895 Hart attended…

Thomas Morland Hocken, whose name is perpetuated in the Hocken Library, Dunedin, was born on 14 January 1836 in Rutlandshire, England. He was the third surviving son of Joshua Hocken, who was of Cornish descent, and his…

Thomas Alexander Hunter was born on 28 February 1876 in Croydon, Surrey, England, the son of Louisa Jane Harton, a woman of force and character, and her husband, William Hunter, a banker's clerk. The third of five…

Herman Harry Jekeles was born at Dubauti, in the district of Cernauti, Romania (now Chernovtsy, Ukraine), on 5 August 1908. He was the youngest of five children of Jewish parents Mina Rosa Croon (Corne) and her husband…

Robert Logan was born at Langton, Berwickshire, Scotland, on 2 April 1863, the son of Euphemia Helen Logan and her husband, Thomas Logan, a tenant farmer. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy. Arriving in New Zealand in…

Rata and Colin Lovell-Smith were leading artists of the Canterbury School, a regionalist movement which expressed a growing awareness of a local identity and harboured aspirations for a distinctive New Zealand art.…

Joel Samuel Polack is said to have been born in London, England, on 28 March 1807, son of a successful Jewish painter and engraver, Solomon Polack, and his wife, Sarah. The family had migrated from Holland to Ireland…