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1874–1964Compositor, trade unionist, politician, editor, journalist, censor
John Thomas Paul was born near Boort, Victoria, Australia, on 16 August 1874, the son of Mary Tomkins and her husband, Daniel Fisher Paul, who farmed a small selection and worked as a railway employee. Tom served his apprenticeship as a compositor on the Bendigo Independent. On 10 November...
Story: Paul, John Thomas
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1887–?Criminal, prison escaper
Joseph John Thomas Pawelka (sometimes spelled Pavelka or Powelka) was born at West Oxford, Canterbury, New Zealand, on 4 August 1887, the son of Moravian-born parents Jozef Pavelka, a bushman, and his wife, Louisa König. The family moved to Kimbolton when Joseph was four. He attended school...
Story: Pawelka, Joseph John Thomas
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1871–1942Accountant, teacher, politician
John Payne was born in Manchester, England, on 23 November 1871, the son of William Payne, a solicitor's clerk, and his wife, Sarah Ann Pell. After working in an office, Payne migrated to New Zealand about 1892, finding employment first on a farm and then as a goldminer. He was subsequently...
Story: Payne, John
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1881–1973Teacher, novelist, broadcaster
Inez Isabel Maud Peacocke was born in Devonport, Auckland, on 31 January 1881. She was the daughter of Emily Frances Mitchell and her husband, Gerald Loftus Torin Peacocke, a Madeira-born English barrister, later editor of the New Zealand Farmer. Isabel's carefree childhood was spent by...
Story: Peacocke, Inez Isabel Maud
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1903–1990Clerk, jazz specialist, broadcaster, pianist
Arthur Fairchild Pearce was born in Thorndon, Wellington, on 18 December 1903, the only child of Charles Pearce and his wife, Nina Jane Fairchild. Charles was a clerk for the large Wellington importer Levin and Company, in which his father, Colonel Edward Pearce, was a partner.
Arthur...
Story: Pearce, Arthur Fairchild
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1906–1995Kindergarten teacher and director, policewoman, internment camp supervisor
Edna Bertha Pearce was born at Christchurch on 26 March 1906, the daughter of Lucy Elliott Allison and her husband, Ernest Walter Pearce, a farmer. She attended St Albans School until, aged seven, she moved with her family to a Canterbury farm for six years, before returning to Christchurch...
Story: Pearce, Edna Bertha
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1893–1981Art gallery curator and director
Annette Grace Weeks was born in Bowling, Dunbartonshire, Scotland, on 22 May 1893. She was the daughter of Elizabeth Stevenson and her husband, George Methven Weeks, a commission agent, who was later a railway clerk. She attended the Glasgow School of Art, influenced by Charles Rennie...
Story: Pearse, Annette Grace
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1877–1953Inventor, aviator, farmer, builder
Richard William Pearse was born on 3 December 1877 at Waitohi Flat, the fourth of nine children of Sarah Ann Brown and her husband, Digory Sargent Pearse, a farmer. Their property, Trewarlet, was 5½ miles inland from Temuka. They were a cultured family with their own orchestra; Richard played...
Story: Pearse, Richard William
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1922–2002Novelist, essayist, critic, academic
Bill Pearson was an important mid-twentieth-century fiction writer, cultural commentator and academic, best known for his social realist novel Coal Flat (1963) and polemical essay on New Zealand identity, ‘Fretful sleepers’ (1952). These and other works made him one of the foremost commentators...
Story: Pearson, William Harrison
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1856–1934Carrier, bush contractor, prospector, mine manager, farmer, local politician, businessman
Born on 10 January 1856 at Boghall, a 400-acre farm at Kingsbarns, Fife, Scotland, Alexander Peebles was the second child of George Peebles, a farm labourer, and his wife, Janet Turnbull. George was offered a contract as head ploughman on Purvis Russell's estate, Woburn, near Waipukurau, New...
Story: Peebles, Alexander
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1904–1988Teacher, child welfare administrator, billiards player
Charles Edward Peek was born at Picton, Marlborough, on 13 April 1904, the eldest of five children of Annie May Lange and her husband, Charles Peek, a storeman. He attended Picton School and Marlborough High School, where he excelled at all sports and was dux. From 1922 to 1923 he went to...
Story: Peek, Charles Edward
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1874–1959Teacher, civilian and military nurse, matron
Edna Pengelly was born in Canada on 5 July 1874, the daughter of Laura Ann Brown and her husband, William Pengelly. Edna came to New Zealand as a child when her father bought a small farm at Annat, a settlement near the foothills of the Southern Alps. She walked four miles a day to attend a...
Story: Pengelly, Edna
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1890–1982School principal, educationalist
William Arthur Greener Penlington was born on 8 October 1890 at Akaroa, Banks Peninsula, where his grandfather, a sawmiller, had settled in the late 1850s. The son of compositor William Penlington and his English-born wife, Annie Greener, he went to school in Akaroa and Hamilton. He then...
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1876–1951Fisherman, whaler
Joseph August Perano was born at Dunedin, New Zealand, on 10 October 1876, the third of eleven children of Agostino Perano and his wife, Susan Williams. Agostino was a Picton-based fisherman of Italian extraction, and Joe followed his father into fishing. On 19 July 1904 he married Martha Ruth...
Story: Perano, Joseph August
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1854–1928Lawyer, politician, agent general
Westby Brook Percival was born at Launceston, Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), on 11 May 1854, the son of Westby Hawkshaw Percival, an Irish lieutenant in the Mounted Police, Melbourne, Australia, and his wife, Sarah Brook, née Bailey. In the early 1860s the family settled at Rangiora, North...
Story: Perceval, Westby Brook
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1837–1915Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki and Rongowhakaata; politician, runholder
Wī Pere was born on 7 March 1837 at Tūranga (Gisborne), the son of Poverty Bay trader Thomas Halbert and Rīria Mauaranui, Halbert's fourth wife. Rīria was a woman of considerable mana, predominantly of Te Whānau-a-Kai hapū of Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, and also of Rongowhakaata. The child was...
Story: Pere, Wiremu
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1892–1980Soldier, agricultural scientist, university professor, agricultural college principal
Geoffrey Sylvester Peren was born at Streatham, Surrey, England, on 30 November 1892, the son of Ethel Mary Fleming and her husband, Robert Henry Peren. His father came from a farming background but after attending the University of Cambridge had become an insurance broker in London. Peren...
Story: Peren, Geoffrey Sylvester
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1891–1968Artist, art teacher
Christopher Edward Perkins (registered at birth as Edward Christopher) was born on 21 September 1891 at Peterborough, England, the son of John Edward Sharman Perkins, an agricultural engineer, and his wife, Margaret Charlotte Long. After attending Gresham Free Grammar School, he studied at the...
Story: Perkins, Christopher Edward
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fl. 1843–1851Rongowhakaata tohunga and carver
Te Waaka Perohuka was a tohunga and carver of the Rongowhakaata people of Tūranga (Gisborne). His date of birth is unknown but must have been in the late eighteenth century, as he was one of the principal leaders of Rongowhakaata when Europeans first arrived on the East Coast. The missionary...
Story: Perohuka, Te Waaka
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1921–1988Potter
Patricia Charlotte Perrin was born at her family’s home in Arthur Street, Ellerslie, Auckland, on 11 July 1921, the daughter of Ruby Elizabeth Bennett and her husband, Huntly Percy Perrin, a dentist. Her mother died when she was 10. Pat had two elder sisters, Phyllis and Yvonne; a brother had...
Story: Perrin, Patricia Charlotte