New Zealand

Famous New Zealander People: New Zealander Artists, Scientists, Leaders, Musicians, Politicians and Athletes

Even if the country is almost isolated due to its geographic location, New Zealand is home to breakthrough scientists, brilliant mathematicians, great literary figures and award-winning writers, artists, musicians and composers and world-renown sports personalities. Their contributions in different fields have helped New Zealand and the rest of the world reach new heights in every field of endeavor and provided inspiration for others to emulate. Their innate strength of mind, body and spirit, perhaps a legacy from the fierce and freedom-loving Maoris became a benchmark for them to continue to excel. Here is a list of some of the famous people from New Zealand that will you realize their contribution and be inspired by them, too as well as help you learn about these wonderful people from an island nation that is located almost in the middle of the water hemisphere.

:: List of Famous People from New Zealand ::

Alexander Craig Aitken
Alexander Aitken, dubbed the Human Computer was born in Dunedin on April 1, 1895. He was not that good in mathematics while he was in grade school. It was his determination to conquer it, using his skills in mental computations that surfaced when he was fourteen years of age that made him do amazing things in mathematics. He could multiply mentally together two 9-digit numbers and give the answer in half a minute. He could also convert awkward fractions to decimals until 26 places in less than five seconds. Aitken can also recall the first 1,000 decimal places of pi.

His power of mental calculations contributed to providing solutions for econometrics in applying matrix algebra to problems in numerical analysis. He had papers published on polynominal equations, computational algorithms, invariant theory and eigenvalue problems. The standard vector/matrix notation for Linear Regression model and its extension came from Aitken’s applied statistical method to the theory of linear models. Another work of his that is still used today in econometrics is the Generalized Least Squares estimator.

Aitken spent his years after the war as a lecturer in Statistics and Mathematical Economics at Edinburgh University in Scotland. He died on November 3, 1967 after a long illness.

Harold Williams
Harold Williams was born in Auckland, New Zealand on April 6, 1876. He was a journalist and the foreign editor of The Times, a British daily newspaper. He had the distinction of being listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the greatest linguist in the world, fluently speaking 58 languages and other dialects. His father was a Methodist minister and he started learning the classics in Latin. It was when he was seven years old that he started getting interested in learning languages and began constructing grammar and vocabulary using the Bible and the Gospels. He entered the Methodist Ministry when he was 20 and his travels and contact with people of different nationalities increased his knowledge, as he quickly absorbed and learned their language. He learned most of the languages that the spoke by himself, including Old Irish, Tagalog, Czech, Egyptian, Albanian, Hittite, Japanese, Chinese, Basque, Hungarian and Coptic and mastered the Cuneiform inscriptions as well as the book containing 12,000 characters in Chinese Mandarin. He became advisor to statesmen in 1916 and was able to converse and foreign editor of The Times in 1922. His facility to learn a new language is truly incredible. At one time he had to escape to Serbia while working as foreign correspondent and was able to speak the language fluently in two days to the amazement of the local Serbs. He died unexpectedly on November 18, 1928 while preparing for a trip to Egypt.

Robert Burchfield
Robert William Burchfield was born in Wanganui on January 27, 1923. He was a writer, as scholar and a Chicago Tribune-hailed lexicographer. He was responsible for the 4-volume second supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary, which he did from 1957 to 1986, and had several works published in the study of the sources and development of English as a language. He worked on an edition of Ormulum (Orrmulum), a biblical work written in the 12th century by a monk. It consisted of unique phonetic orthography that preserved a lot of details of the English pronunciation that was invaluable to philologists for tracing the development of the English language. His work on the Ormulum was supervised by J. J. Tolkien. He substantially edited a book in 2004, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, a style guide written by Martin Fowler. Burchfield died on July 5, 2004 at the age of 81.

Nancy Wake
Nancy Grace Augusta Wake was born on August 30, 1912 in Wellington. She was a top-notch British agent in WWII. She was so good at her job that the Gestapo made her their most wanted person and labeled her White Mouse. She was the most decorated of all the servicewomen of the Allies during WWII, and was the leader of an army of 7,000 maquis (rural guerilla units) troops of the French Resistance. She was a very brave lady from the beginning. Her family moved to Sydney, Australia and her father eventually left them. She wan away from home at age 16 and worked as a nurse before running off to London with £200 in her pocket and trained herself to be a journalist. Nancy worked in Paris and the Hearst newspaper and saw Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. She married a wealthy Frenchman in 1939 and lived in France. When France lost to the Germans Nancy became a courier and part Captain Ian Garrow’s escape network. Her ability to elude capture earned her the nickname White Mouse. Her bravery led her to be more active in the resistance movement. She helped recruit more members, distributed arms, ammunition and communication and led attacks on German installations. She even killed a German sentry who spotted her with her bare hands. Her husband was captured, tortured and killed by the Germans and she only learned of her husband’s death after the war. Nancy Wake received the George Medal, the Medal of Freedom from the United States and the Médaille de la Résistance. She was awarded the Croix de Guerre three times. She worked at the British Air Ministry Intelligence Department after the war.

She tried her hands at politics in Australia twice but was unsuccessful and decided to retire with her husband, John Forward, an RAF officer. They had no children. Nancy Wake died in England on August 11, 2011 and her ashes were strewn on Montluçon in France at her request.

Keith Park
Sir Keith Rodney Park, born in Thames, New Zealand on June 15, 1892 was a soldier, a WWI flying ace and a Royal Airforce Commander in WWII. He was part of the tactical command during the Battle of Britain and Battle of Malta and became known as the Defender of London, for his leadership, skills and judgment that led to winning air battles for Britain.

Keith Park showed keen interest in guns and riding as a schoolboy and joined the New Zealand Army Field Artillery unit before boarding a ship to work as a purser in 1911 at the age of 19. When WWI broke out he left the ship to join the NZ artillery battalion and saw action in Galipoli as a non-commissioned officer where his achievements were first recognized. He was later commissioned as a second lieutenant and commanded an artillery battalion. In 1915 he transferred to the British Army and joined the Royal Horse and Field Artillery until his evacuation from Galipoli in 1916. He met Sir William Birdwood, ANZAC commander while he was in Galipoli and Park’s leadership style and attention to detail was patterned after him.

He was blown off his horse by a German shell in October 21, 1916 while in France. He was able to recuperate but was declared unfit to ride a horse again and he decided to join the Royal Flying Corps where he learned to fly and later got the post to join the 48 Squadron until he became a temporary captain on September 11, 1917 and later as a major. During WWII he was already promoted as air vice marshal and commanded the No. 11 Group RAF, flying his personalized Hawker Hurricane plane. He showed what kind of masterful tactician he was when he was commanding the RAF forces on the ground and in the air. Receiving many honors and medals during his years of active service with the Royal Air Force of Britain, Park retired with the rank of Air Chief Marshall on December 20, 1946. He returned to New Zealand and performed civic roles including being a member of the city council of Auckland. He died on February 6, 1975.

Kate Sheppard
Katherine Wilson Sheppard was born on March 10, 1847. Although not a natural-born Kiwi as she was from Liverpool, England, she made Christchurch, New Zealand her home since her mother brought her in 1869 to the country after her father’s death. She was 22 at that time. Kate married Walter Allen Sheppard when she was 25 and had one son, Douglas, who was born on December 8, 1880. She established the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in 1885, due mainly to the religious beliefs she inherited from her mother. Soon she actively advocated women’s suffrage. She was a skilled organizer and an enigmatic speaker, submitting petitions to the Parliament for women’s suffrage in 1891, 1892 and 1893 with each petition getting larger each year. By 1893 the suffrage bill was passed and women were able to vote that same year. New Zealand became the first country to allow women to vote through the efforts of Kate Sheppard. She continued to be very active in promoting the rights of women and was elected as president of the national Council of Women of New Zealand. She traveled and met with fellow suffragettes in the United States, England and Canada. She spent the rest of her life writing until her death on July 13, 1934.

John Britten
John Kenton Britten was a mechanical engineer who designed from scratch a motorbike that is considered the fastest in the world. Britten was born almost at midnight of August 1, 1950 and his twin sister on August 2. He was a dyslexic and had to have his tests read to him and his answers recorded. But that did not mar his brilliance as an architectural designer and mechanical engineer. His childhood heroes were all people related to machines and racing, all of them from New Zealand, Bill Hamilton, Richard Pearse, Burt Munro and Bruce McLaren. He joined ICI after graduation as a draftsman that gave him opportunities to learn about pattern, mechanical engineering and mold designs as well as metal spinning. He also worked under Sir Alexander Gibb and Partners in England for four months where he helped in the creation of the highway design to link M1 to M4.

Back in New Zealand he joined Rowe Engineering as a design engineer for heavy machinery and off-road equipment. He also tried his hand as a fine artist designing and hand making glass lighting before he concentrated on designing motorcycles. He pioneered the use of space age Kevlar and carbon fiber for the body of the motorcycle he built in his backyard and designed the complete engine using his new fabrication system. The end result was the Britten motorcycle, the fastest in the world that surpassed the performance of even the top-line motorbikes manufactured in Japan and Italy. Britten however only had a short life, leaving this world at age 45 on September 5, 1995 due to complications from skin cancer.

Richard Pearse
Richard William Pearse, born on December 3 1877 was the son of Cornish immigrants. He was born in Temuka, New Zealand where he spent his time as a farmer and as an inventor. He was known for his pioneering experiments in the world of aviation. According to statements from witnesses, Pearse flew his first aircraft on March 31, 1903, 9 months before the Wright Brothers made their first flight. However, unlike the Wright Brothers who had sponsors that funded their inventions, Pearse made his aircraft on his own. According to witnesses’ accounts and evidences that were uncovered after Pearse’s death, his innovative designs for an aircraft were more related to modern-day aircraft designs than the aircraft designed by the Wright Brothers. It was just unfortunate that there was very little documentation on the inventions of Pearse. Aviation pioneer George Bolt did research on the works of Pearse and was able to see the last flying plane of Pearse, excavated from a South Canterbury dump site in 1958. He was able to bring Pearse’s aeronautical achievements to wider attention and proved that the flying machine with a 15-horsepower engine can indeed take flight. Pearse died in Sunnymede Mental Hospital where he was committed due to paranoia on July 29, 1953.

Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford was considered the father of nuclear physics. A British physicist and chemist, he was born in Brightwater, Nelson, New Zealand on August 30, 1871. He had dual masteral degrees in Mathematics and Physical Science. His first works that made him popular was his discovery of the chemistry of radioactive substances and his investigations on the disintegration of chemical elements. He also found the difference and gave names to the radiation emitted by thorium and uranium the names alpha ray and beta ray. He was also that one that gave a name to the gamma ray. His early discoveries were the basis for his Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1908.

He was also credited as the first person to split the atom in his experiments in nuclear reaction in 1917 where he worked with nitrogen and alpha particles. It was also during this time that he discovered and gave the name to proton. He was knighted in 1914 and received the Order of Merit in 1925, and was given the title Baron Ernest Rutherford of Nelson. Due to his title, protocol dictated that he had to be operated on by a titled doctor, a delay that caused him his life for an umbilical hernia operation on October 19, 1937. He was interred in the Westminster Abbey, near Sir Isaac Newton and beside J. J. Thomson, a Nobel laureate and British physicist. Streets, buildings, institutions, awards and foundations, including the element 104, rutherfordium were named in his honor.

Edmund Hillary
Sir Edmund Hillary, born in Auckland, New Zealand on July 20, 1919 was the first man to conquer Mount Everest together with Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay. He achieved this feat on May 29 1953 at the age of 33. Hillary was an explorer, a mountaineer and a philanthropist who founded the Himalayan Trust to help the Sherpa people after his successful ascent of Mount Everest. His foundation helped built several hospitals and schools in the remote areas of Nepal.

Bill Hamilton
Sir Charles William Feilden Hamilton, born on July 26, 1899 in Ashwick Station, Faerlie in the South Island of New Zealand was an engineer credited with the development of the modern jet boat. Developed in 1954, the jet boat was designed to be used on the shallow and fast-flowing rivers in New Zealand so that the propellers from standard outboard motors will not strike the rocks under water. His invention paved the way for the founding of CWF Hamilton Ltd., the leading water jet manufacturing company in the world. Bill Hamilton had several other inventions aside from the jet boat. He developed an excavator with an earth scoop so he can build a dam and provide hydropower for his sheep farm and his engineering workshop. He also designed and built the first ski tow used on Coronet Peak Ski Field, the first commercial skifield in New Zealand located in Queenstown. His company also manufactured heavy machinery, particularly those used in the hydroelectric projects at the Waitaki River in Christchurch.

Lloyd Allan Trigg
Born in Houhora, New Zealand on May 5, 1914, Lloyd Allan Trigg was a flying officer with the Royal New Zealand Air Force. He fought for Britain with the British and Commonwealth armed forces. He received the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry posthumously. The award was very unique in the history of the Victoria Cross because the evidence of Trigg’s gallantry was actually provided by the enemy, as there were no Allied forces survivors to corroborate the gallantry shown by Trigg.

Trigg received his pilot wings in January 16, 1942 after attending pilot training school in Canada. He was posted to West Africa in December 1942 and was with the No. 200 Squadron the following month and joined in reconnaissance patrols, anti-submarine patrols and convoy escort flights. He was on his first operational flight aboard a Liberator V aircraft over the Atlantic on August 11, 1943 when he engaged the U-468 German submarine that had Oberleutnant Klemens Schamong as commander. His plane received several hits but he was still able to launch his final attack, flying at just 50 feet over the U-boat and dropping bombs on and around the U-boat before he crashed 300 yards away from it. The crash killed Trigg and his crew and the only witnesses were the U-boat crew. Trigg’s last assault however badly damaged the U-boat and it eventually sank after 20 minutes, killing 42 crew hands and leaving only 7 survivors including the commander who were rescued by the Royal Navy. Oberleutnant Klemens Schamong reported the incident the following day and recommended the decoration of Trigg for the bravery he showed in the face of the enemy.

Harold Gillies
Harold Delf Gillies, born in Dunedin on June 17, 1882 was an otolaryngologist who was considered the father of plastic surgery, a branch of medicine he became interested in while working with the Royal Army Medical Corps during World War I. He saw Valadier, a French-American dentist, experiment on emerging skin graft techniques. He went to Paris to learn from Hippolyte Morestin and later went back to England to persuade the army chief to have a facial surgery ward at Aldershot, the Cambridge Military Hospital. The facial ward became very popular due to the war and he and his colleagues performed 11,000 plus operations on more than 5,000 soldiers who had facial injuries while perfecting their techniques. He continued his work through World War II, mainly as a trainor and consultant. Gillies also did pioneering work with a colleague when they performed the first sex reassignment surgery from female to male (phaloplasty) on Michael Dillon in 1946. Using the flap technique he and his colleagues also performed the first male to female sex reassignment surgery (vaginoplasty) on Roberta Cowell in 1951. The work they did became a 40-year standard in surgeries of that type.

Maurice Wilkins
Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins was born in Pongaroa, Wairarapa, New Zealand on December 15, 1916. His father was a medical doctor from Dublin. They moved to England when Wilkins was six and he received his bachelor’s degree in physics from St. John’s College in Cambridge. His body of scientific work included researches that led to the scientific understanding of optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction, phosphorescence and isotope separation. He received a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for his contribution to the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA.

Kiri Te Kanawa
Dame Kiri Jeanette Te Kanawa was named Claire Mary Teresa Rawstron when she was born in Gisborne, North Island, New Zealand on March 6, 1944. She was of European and Maori ancestry. Thomas Te Kanawa and his wife adopted her as an infant. She was trained by Sister Mary Leo, RSM in operatic singing. She started as a mezzo-soprano in her singing career. She then became a soprano of international acclaim since 1968. Kiri Te Kanawa a multi-awarded operatic singer performs a wide selection of works in different languages, and is associated particularly to the works of Puccini, Handel, Mozart, Strauss and Verdi. She had performed around the world, usually portraying nobility that suits her very nicely as she has the physical beauty and natural stage presence for such roles. Dame Kiri Te Kanawa sang at the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.

Jonah Lomu
Jonah Tali Lomu was born on May 12, 1975 in Auckland is one of New Zealand’s greatest rugby union players as an All Blacks with 63 caps. All Blacks is the national rugby union team of New Zealand. He has such an imposing presence in the field not only because of his height (6 feet 5 inches) but also because of his body size. He holds the record as the all-time top try scorer with 15 tries in the Rugby World Cup. He was inducted to the International Rugby Hall of Fame on October 9, 2007. Jonah Lomu’s career as a rugby union player was put on hold in 1995 when he was diagnosed with a serious kidney disorder that required him to received dialysis treatment three times a week. The dialysis treatment however had serious side effects that caused serious damage to the nerves on his legs and arms and he required kidney transplant or else live the rest of his life on a wheelchair. He received a kidney transplant in July 2004 and the operation was successful. He was able to play rugby again in June 2005 in an invitational rugby match in Twickenham, England but badly injured his shoulder in the first half and he failed to come out for the second half. He continued to play on and off until he announced his retirement in 2007. He then began to join amateur bodybuilding competitions in 2009. Lomu however went back to rugby and currently plays for Marseille Vitrolles Rugby wearing the number 8.

Richard Hadlee
Cricket is one of the most popular sports in New Zealand, a legacy from Britain. As such there were many great cricketers from the country. One of them is Sir Richard John Hadlee. He was born on July 3, 1951 in St. Albans, Christchurch. His father, his two brothers and his ex-wife are all cricket players. For his services to cricket he was given the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) appointment in 1990. Hadlee used to be the chairman of the New Zealand board of selectors and is regarded as one of the greatest fast bowlers and all rounders in the history of cricket. He was commemorated as one of the Twelve Local Heores and a bronze bust was created for him and placed outside the Christchurch Arts Centre in 2009. He was inducted to the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame on April 3, 2009. He had an 86-test career, and is now retired from professional cricket. During his career, he took 431 wickets, which was considered a world record at that time. He was also the first bowler who passed 400 wickets and made 3,124 test runs.

Bruce McLaren
For fans of Formula One, the name Bruce McLaren is a byword and his name lives on as the McLaren team is one of the most successful Formula One teams in the history of championship car racing. Bruce Leslie Mclaren was born on August 30, 1937 in Auckland, New Zealand. He was an inventor, engineer, race car designer and driver. His Formula One racing team had won 20 world championships, 56 wins in CanAm sports car racing, where he was behind the steering wheel for a considerable number of times, 24 Hours of Le Mans and 12 Hours of Sebring and there Indianapolis 500 wins. Bruce McLaren died very young, He was only 32 n June 2, 1970 when his car crashed on the Lavant Straight at the Goodwood Circuit in England while testing the new M8D. The rear bodywork of his car came adrift causing the loss of aerodynamic downforce. This cause instability to the car and it spun and hit the bunker.

Peter Arnett
Viewers of CNN will remember Peter Gregg Arnett, born on November 13, 1934 in Riverton, New Zealand. He started his journalism career in Bangkok around 1960 running a small English language newspaper and became a reporter for the Associated Press during the Vietnam War and later became the writer for “Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War,” a mini-series documentary done in 1980. He was able to cover the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He was working for CNN when the Gulf War broke out and he became the only reporter to relay live reports direct from Baghdad. He received a Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting 1966. Arnett was able to interview Osama Bin Laden in March 1997.

Lucy Lawless
Lucille Frances Ryan was born on March 29, 1968. She is well known as Lucy Lawless, a singer and actress who hails from Mt. Albert, Auckland. She is best remembered for her playing the title role in Xena: Warrior Princess, a TV series that successfully run from 6 seasons starting 1995. Prior to her own TV series, Lucy had recurring guest appearances in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys as a man-hating Amazon named Lysia. She also appeared as Xena in some episodes of Hercules, playing a villainess and a good character. She was also part of Battlestar Galactica, playing the role of D’anna Biers (Number Three). Lucy’s recent works on TV were for the series Spartacus: Gods of the Arena and Spartacus: Blood and Sand where she played Lucretia, one of the major characters in the series.

Peter Jackson
Sir Peter Robert Jackson of the Lord of the Rings trilogy fame was born on October 31, 1961 in Pukerua Bay, New Zealand. He is a multi awarded film director, actor, screenwriter and producer. He gained international recognition for hi splatstick horror comedies before he shifted to mainstream movies such as Heavenly Characters where he got an Academy Award for Best Screenplay nomination with Fran Walsh, his wife. He received an Academy Award for Best Director in 2003 as well as awards for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Jackson produced District 9 and was the producer, co-writer as well as the director of King Kong. Jackson had also made several movie appearances as part of the crowd, while his son had appeared in almost all his films just like his daughter, although she was not in the movie The Frighteners. Jackson began filming the much-delayed The Hobbit on March 20, 2011 and had formed a games development studio called Wingnut Interactive.

Russell Crowe
Although he is now an Australian, Russell Ira Crowe was born in Wellington, New Zealand. His maternal grandmother had Maori blood. Crowe was born on April 7, 1964 and he was already four years old when his family moved to Australia as his parents wanted to pursue a career in providing catering services for film sets. Crowe started his career as a musician in mid-1980s and also managed a music venue in Auckland. His first professional role was in The Rocky Horror Show and then had appearances in TV series such as “Neighbours” and “Living with the Law.” His first movie role was in 1990 film “The Crossing.” He moved on to star in other films in Australia and won several awards. He made his first Hollywood movies in 1995, co-starring with Denzel Washington in “Virtuosity” and in “The Quick and the Dead” with Sharon Stone. He starred in the “Gladiator” in 2001 and won an Oscar for Best Actor. He also received Oscar nominations for his films “The Insider,” and “A Beautiful Mind.” Crowe had made several memorable films that showed his versatility and strength as an actor. Crowe is an avid rugby league follower and co-owns South Sydney Rabbitohs, a team that plays in the National Rugby League in Australia.

:: References ::
http://www.localhistories.org/famousnewzealanders.html
http://www.virtualoceania.net/newzealand/culture/people.shtml
http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/List_of_famous_New_Zealand_people/
http://en.wikipedia.org