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Filter biographies using dates, occupations and places related to people's lives.
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1835–1922Stationer, printer, publisher
Henry Aitken Wise, the foremost directory publisher of his time in New Zealand and Australia, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 28 December 1835. He was the son of George Wise, a grocer, and his wife, Helen Dove. He worked in a newspaper office in Ayr before entering the civil service in...
Story: Wise, Henry Aitken
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1894–1982Bookplate designer, artist, calligrapher
Hilda Alexandra Wiseman was born in Mooroopna, Victoria, Australia, on 7 April 1894, the eldest of seven children of Alexander Wiseman, a music teacher, and his wife, Harriot Amanda Coombes. Her parents were both from Auckland, New Zealand, and returned with their family in 1904.
Her...
Story: Wiseman, Hilda Alexandra
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1814–1874Naval officer
William Saltonstall Wiseman was born probably on 4 August 1814 at Bombay, India, son of Captain Sir William Saltonstall Wiseman of Canfield Hall, Essex, England, and Catherine Mackintosh, daughter of Sir James Mackintosh, recorder of Bombay. William entered the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth...
Story: Wiseman, William Saltonstall
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1920–2016Magazine editor
As editor of the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly for 32 years, Jean Wishart became a virtual friend to thousands of New Zealand women who warmly responded to her editorials. The magazine absorbed all her working life of 47 years, and during that time she increased its circulation by presciently...
Story: Wishart, Jean Boughton
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1876–1934Farmer, horticulturist, conservationist
George Witters was born at Makauri, Poverty Bay, New Zealand, on 11 September 1876 to Ann Maxwell and her husband, William Witters, a farm labourer. He grew up wanting his own farm and in 1901 bought a 31-acre block called Kaiaponi, at Waerenga-a-hika, seven miles north of Gisborne. On this...
Story: Witters, George
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1901–1968Welfare worker, community leader
Maria (Myna) Dunin Borkowska was born on 31 March 1901 in Klimaszowka, eastern Poland, then part of Russia. Her father, Kalikst Dunin Borkowski, an estate owner, and his wife, Maria Wolowska, belonged to the Polish nobility. She went to school in Kiev, and was there during the Russian...
Story: Wodzicka, Maria
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1900–1987Biologist, university professor, consul general, scientific administrator
Kazimierz Antoni z Granowa Wodzicki, born on 4 February 1900 at Olejów, eastern Poland, was the son of Maria Dzieduszycka and her husband, Count Alexander Louis Wodzicki. Kazimierz’s father spent his life managing the family estates at Olejów; his grandfather was a distinguished naturalist....
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1812?–1891Missionary, nurse, teacher
Johann Friedrich Heinrich Wohlers, known in New Zealand as John Frederick Henry Wohlers, was born on 1 October 1811 at Mahlenstorf, a village several miles from Bremen on the border of the kingdom of Hanover and the grand duchy of Oldenburg. He was the son of Johann Gerd Wohlers, a farmer, and...
Story: Wohlers, Eliza
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1872–1956Policeman, police commissioner
Ward George Wohlmann was born on 4 August 1872 in a cottage at the Invercargill police station. His parents were Rebecca McDonald and her husband, George Alfred Wohlman, a police constable and later a farmer. Little is known of Ward's education. After working as a farm labourer and then...
Story: Wohlmann, Ward George
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1879–1958Butcher, orchardist, viticulturist, wine-maker
On 31 December 1914, inflamed with anti-German hostility, a crowd of about a thousand people ransacked Friedrich and Anna Wohnsiedler's butchery in the main street of Gisborne. The couple fled with their three young children out a top-storey window and across planks to an adjacent building....
Story: Wohnsiedler, Friedrich
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1839/1840?–1911Storekeeper, policeman, interpreter
Charles Wong Gye, also known as Wong Gye and Wong Ah Gye, was born at Canton (Guangzhou), China, in 1839 or 1840. He was the son of Wong Hung, a merchant, and his wife, Leong Sum. Nothing is known of his early life. On 6 May 1869 he married Harriet Asquith, a needlewoman, in Melbourne,...
Story: Wong Gye, Charles
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1875–1967Merchant
Benjamin Wong Tape, also named Wong Ben Yew, was born on 26 December 1875 in Dunedin, New Zealand, the eldest child of Forsigh Wong Tape and his second wife, Hie Toy. Wong Tape, a merchant from Sunning (Taishan) county, Guangdong province, China, had led an early group of Cantonese goldseekers...
Story: Wong Tape, Benjamin
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1878–1947Architect
Cecil Walter Wood was born at Christchurch on 6 June 1878, the sixth of nine children of Robert Haswell Wood, a merchant, and his wife, Margaret Amelia Tribe. His mother died when he was seven and his father later remarried. Cecil attended Christchurch West School and at the age of 12 was...
Story: Wood, Cecil Walter
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1903–1989Historian, university professor
Frederick Lloyd Whitfeld Wood was born in Sydney, Australia, on 29 September 1903, the son of George Arnold Wood and his wife, Eleanor Madeline Whitfeld. His father had migrated to Australia to be the University of Sydney’s first professor of history. Frederick, or ‘Freddie’ as he became...
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1909–1990Educationalist, music teacher
Joan Myrtle Walter was born on 11 January 1909 in South Weald, Essex, England, the eldest of three daughters of South African-born Vivienne Frances Myrtle Noyce and her English husband, Ernest Lee Walter, an East India merchant. She was educated in London and South Africa, becoming dux of...
Story: Wood, Joan Myrtle
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1836–1880Writer
Susan Lapham was born on 21 August 1836, at Lisdillon, Great Swan Port, Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), Australia. She was the youngest daughter of Susan Butler and her husband, Samuel Lapham, a farmer, and later deputy sheriff of Portland, Victoria. On 9 February 1854, at Portland, she married...
Story: Wood, Susan
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1896–1989Runholder, wool-classer, cattle breeder, historian, community leader
Philip Randal Woodhouse was born in Dunedin on 9 February 1886, the son of John Frederick Churton Woodhouse, a solicitor, and his wife, Edith Bathgate. Randal (as he was known) was educated at Otago Boys' High School and the University of Otago. After graduating in medicine in 1910 he joined...
Story: Woodhouse, Airini Elizabeth
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1883–1977Journalist, librarian, broadcaster, radio quiz contestant, writer
Alice Woodhouse was born in Dunedin on 14 December 1883, one of three children of Edith Bathgate and her husband, John Frederick Woodhouse, a solicitor. She began reading at the age of four and was educated at private schools for girls in Dunedin, where her developing interest in literature...
Story: Woodhouse, Alice
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1916–2014Judge, commission chair, naval officer
Owen Woodhouse was a distinguished judge and the architect of New Zealand’s no-fault accident compensation system. After naval service in the Second World War, Woodhouse worked as a lawyer until his appointment as a Supreme Court judge in 1961. In 1966–7, he chaired a royal commission of...
Story: Woodhouse, Arthur Owen
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1787/1788?–1867Soldier, police officer, bailiff
Benjamin Woods was the most important police officer in northern New Zealand between 1840 and 1853. He was born in King's County, Ireland, probably in 1787 or 1788, the fifth of six children born to Ann Wilkinson and her husband, Jonathon Woods, a shopkeeper. He married in Dublin, having...
Story: Woods, Benjamin