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Cecil Albert Blazey was chairman of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union during the most turbulent period of its history. He was born in Hastings on 21 July 1909, youngest of the five children of William Robert Blazey,…

John Mason Durie, usually referred to as Mason and known to Māori as Hoani Meihana Te Rama Apakura, was born on his father's farm at Aorangi, near Feilding, on 1 July 1889. His father, Robert Durie (Te Rama Apakura),…

Doris More Lusk was born on 5 May 1916 in Dunedin, the daughter of Thomas Younger Lusk, an architect, and his wife, Alice Mary Coats. Her childhood was spent mostly in Hamilton, where the family had a house on the banks…

Nola Luxford was a New Zealand-born actress, writer, pioneer broadcaster and founder of the Anzac Club in New York City during the Second World War. Born Adelaide Minola Pratt on 23 December 1895 at Hunterville, she was…

Īhakara Te Tuku Rāpana, widely known as Ike Robin, was born, according to family information, on 8 November 1886 at Wairoa. His mother, Riripeti Te Auē Roberts (or McRobert), was of Scots and Ngāti Kahungunu descent.…

Hepi Hoani Te Heuheu Tūkino was the seventh paramount chief of Ngāti Tūwharetoa, part of a line that traced its ancestry to the tohunga of Te Arawa canoe, Ngātoroirangi. His grandfather, Tūreiti Te Heuheu Tūkino V, had…

Tiramōrehu was born at Kaiapoi pā, probably early in the nineteenth century, into a high-ranking family of the prominent hapū Ngāi Tūāhuriri of Ngāi Tahu. His father was Kāraki. Tiramōrehu was a descendant of Tūāhuriri…

One of the great international aviators of the 1930s, Jean Gardner Batten was born on 15 September 1909 in Rotorua, the only daughter of a dentist, Frederick Harold Batten, and his wife, Ellen (Nellie) Blackmore. She…

John Cawte Beaglehole was born in his parents’ house in Hopper Street, Wellington, on 13 June 1901, the second of four sons of Jane Butler and her husband, David Ernest Beaglehole. David was a serious-minded young man…

Bruce Beetham was one of New Zealand’s best-known politicians during the 1970s and early 1980s. Under his leadership the New Zealand Social Credit Political League mounted a sustained but ultimately unsuccessful third-…

John Holland Baker was born on 4 December 1841 at Chilcomb, Hampshire, England, one of 10 children of Catherine Mathias and her husband, Thomas Fielding Baker, an Anglican clergyman. He was raised by his grandmother for…

James McCosh Clark was born in Beith, Ayrshire, Scotland, on 12 August 1833, the son of Archibald Clark, a merchant, and his first wife, Margaret McCosh, whose father was a wealthy coal mine owner. James arrived in New…

Henry William Cleary (baptised William Henry) was born on 15 January 1859 at Oulart, County Wexford, Ireland. His Catholic father, Robert Cleary, a farmer, came from the neighbouring county of Wicklow and settled in…

Thomas Bannatyne Gillies was born at Rothesay, on the Isle of Bute, Scotland, on 17 January 1828. He was the eldest of nine children of John Gillies, local lawyer and town clerk, and his wife, Isabella Lillie, daughter…

John Eldon Gorst is said to have been born at Fishergate, Preston, Lancashire, England, on 24 May 1835 and was baptised on 30 May. He was the second son of Elizabeth Nesham and her husband, Edward Chaddock Gorst (later…

David Pinkerton was born in the small village of Kirknewton near Edinburgh, Scotland, probably in September 1836, the son of Margaret Hamilton and Benjamin Pinkerton, a corn merchant. He received a parish education and…

Stephenson Percy Smith was born at Beccles, Suffolk, England, on 11 June 1840, the eldest son of Hannah Hursthouse and her husband, John Stephenson Smith, a timber and corn merchant and later a civil servant. When Percy…

Hoani Taipua Te Puna-i-rangiriri was born at Rangiuru pā, near the mouth of the Ōtaki River, probably in 1839 or 1840. He belonged to Ngāti Pare, and was kin to Ngāti Huia, both hapu of Ngāti Raukawa; he was also kin to…

Te Tirarau Kūkupa, the son of Kūkupa and his first wife, Whitiao, was born probably in the late 1790s. He was descended from Rāhiri, an ancestor of Ngāpuhi; his grandmother was Te Toka-i-Tawhio, leader of Ngāti Ruangaio…

Joshua Strange Williams was born at Paddington, London, England, on 19 September 1837, the eldest son of Lucy Strange and her husband, Joshua Williams, a conveyancer who became an eminent barrister and wrote…