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Maharaia Winiata, commonly known as Maha, was born on 29 September 1912 at Ngāhina pā, near Rūātoki, in the eastern Bay of Plenty. His parents were Winiata Piahana and his wife, Te Ruakawhena Kohu, both of Ngāi…

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…

Alistair Te Ariki Campbell was one of New Zealand’s most distinctive poetic voices from the 1950s to the 2000s. His work, which combined lyricism and darkness, was shaped by an idyllic Rarotongan childhood, early family…

Bernard Fergusson was the country’s tenth governor-general and the last in a long line of British representatives in the imperial tradition. Cheerful and friendly, he was immensely popular and admired for his…

George William Forbes was born in Lyttelton, New Zealand, on 12 March 1869, the son of Annie Adamson and her husband, Robert Forbes, a sailmaker. After attending Lyttelton School and Christchurch Boys' High School (1882…

Don Merton’s pioneering conservation efforts brought three threatened New Zealand bird species back from the brink of extinction and inspired similar conservation programmes around the world. From the early 1960s ‘the…

Erihapeti Rehu-Murchie was a Ngāi Tahu (or Kāi Tahu) leader and woman of mana, and a prominent activist in the fields of Māori welfare and health from the 1970s to the 1990s. She was a long-serving member and president…

James Shelley was born on 3 September 1884 in Coventry, Warwickshire, England. His father, also James, was a potter turned policeman; his mother, Ellen Walton, was a weaver's daughter. From this artisan culture – which…

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…

Tāwhiao, of Ngāti Mahuta in the Tainui confederation of tribes, was the son of Waikato leader Pōtatau Te Wherowhero and Whakaawi, Pōtatau's senior wife. He was born at Ōrongokoekoeā on the upper Mōkau River towards the…

Early life Hone Peneamine Anatipa Te Pona Tuwhare was born on 21 October 1922 at Kokewai, a rural area south-east of Kaikohe, Northland. He was of Ngāpuhi descent, with connections to Ngāti Korokoro, Ngāti Tautahi, Te…

Richard John Seddon was born at School Brow, Eccleston, near St Helens, Lancashire, England, on 22 June 1845. His father was Thomas Seddon, headmaster of Eccleston grammar school, who had married Jane Lindsay, a Scot…

Ian Athfield was an award-winning Wellington architect whose practice, Athfield Architects, designed distinctive and innovative houses that challenged suburban norms, as well as celebrated commercial, public and…

Bruce Biggs had a distinguished career as a scholar but he was also that rarer thing, an exceptional builder of academic institutions. In academic Māori studies he was the most influential figure of the twentieth…

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…

Thomas Robert Gore Browne was born on 3 July 1807 at Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England, the second son of Robert Browne and his wife, Sarah Dorothea Steward. The family, of Anglo-Irish origin, had settled near…

Youth Sonja Margaret Loveday Vile was born on 11 November 1923 in Wallaceville, Upper Hutt. Her mother, Gwladys Ilma Vile, was a state-registered nurse; her father was Gerald Dempsey, an army major from Cork, Ireland…

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…

Henry Sewell came to New Zealand in 1853 at the age of 45 as an official of the Canterbury Association and spent about 17½ years in the colony in three periods: 1853–56, 1859–66 and 1870–76. He became one of the leaders…