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James Herries Beattie (known as Herries) was the son of Scots immigrants James Beattie and Mary Roden (Rodden) Thomson, who arrived in Otago in 1862 and were married in 1874. After some years of farming, James Beattie…

Robert Alexander Falla was born in Palmerston North on 21 July 1901, the son of George Falla, a railway clerk, and his wife, Elizabeth Kirk. The family shifted frequently, Falla's younger years being spent in Hāwera,…

Denis James Matthews Glover, one of the most spirited, versatile and influential figures in New Zealand literature, was born at Dunedin on 9 December 1912. He was the third of four children of Irish-born Henry Lawrence…

Tītokowaru was born near Ōkaiawa, in South Taranaki, probably about 1823. He belonged to Ngāti Manuhiakai hapū of Ngā Ruahine, a section of Ngāti Ruanui. He traced his descent from Turi and Rongorongo, and from…

Isaac Earl Featherston was born at Newcastle upon Tyne, England, on 21 March 1813, the son of Thomas Featherston, a wealthy retail grocer and his wife, Jane Earl. He was educated at a private school at Tamworth and at…

Marie Henriette Suzanne Aubert (known first as Suzanne Aubert and later in religion as Mary Joseph Aubert) was born at Saint-Symphorien-de-Lay, Loire, France, on 19 June 1835. She was the daughter of Henriette Catherine…

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…

James Keir Baxter was born on 29 June 1926 at Nurse Ross’s maternity home, Dunedin, the second son of Archibald McColl Learmond Baxter, an Otago farmer, and his wife, Millicent Amiel Macmillan Brown. His brother,…

Lauris Edmond was 51 when she began to publish poetry, and quickly won attention as a voice that was both mature and fresh. Identified at first with the 1970s upsurge of poetry by women, she was later recognised for her…

Frederick Augustus Bennett was born on 15 November 1871 at Ōhinemutu, Lake Rotorua. His mother, Raiha Ratete (Eliza Rogers), a high-born woman of Ngāti Whakaue section of Te Arawa, gave to her son the culture and…

Richard Burgess, also known as Richard Hill, was born in the West End of London, England, on 14 February 1829, the illegitimate son of a lady's maid and 'some one connected with the Horse-guards'. When his father…

Walter James Knox was born in Auckland on 6 March 1919, the son of Doris May Dodds and Walter William Knox, who married in 1921. He grew up in the tough, working-class suburb of Freemans Bay. His father found work as a…

Mavis Davidson was a significant New Zealand mountaineer, a field ecologist and an international authority on sika deer. She made several notable ascents, leading the first all-women ascent of Aoraki/Mount Cook in 1953…

Avis Higgs was a leading figure in wartime textile design in Australia and subsequently a New Zealand artist and designer of note. Her textiles designed in the 1940s and 1950s were notable for their use of New Zealand…

Education Douglas Gordon Lilburn was born in Whanganui on 2 November 1915, the seventh and youngest child of Robert Lilburn and his wife, Rosamund Louisa Shield. Home, until the age of nine, was the picturesque and…

John Ross Marshall was born in Wellington on 5 March 1912, the son of Allan Marshall, a clerk, and his wife, Florence May Ross. His father was from Perthshire, and his mother’s family had also originally come from…

Rāpata Wahawaha, of Te Aowera hapū of Ngāti Porou, was born at either Te Puia or Akuaku, in the Waiapu district. His father was Hīpora Koroua and his mother Te Hapamana Te Whao. His most distinguished ancestor was…

In the second half of the twentieth century, Keith Sinclair transformed how New Zealanders understood themselves and their history. A prominent poet and New Zealand’s most important historian of the 1950s and 1960s, his…

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…

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…