Skip to main content
AThe AnnalsWriters · Scientists · Laureates
BrowseCategoriesPhilosophiesLiteratureCourseGradingEvidenceListsSearchResearch

country list

New Zealand: the essential lives

5 figures from New Zealand, from the earliest recorded to the present day.

Public — readers can open this without signing in.

Kate Sheppard

1848 – 1934

Won the world's first national women's vote in 1893.

New Zealand·Peace · History

Ernest Rutherford

1871 – 1937

Found the atomic nucleus and split the atom.

New Zealand·Physics · ChemistryNobelFull profile

Maurice Wilkins

1916 – 2004

Shared the DNA structure Nobel.

New Zealand·Biology · PhysicsNobel

Alan MacDiarmid

1927 – 2007

Conductive polymers — flexible screens and printed electronics.

New Zealand·ChemistryNobel

Witi Ihimaera

b. 1944

First published Māori novelist; The Whale Rider.

New Zealand·Literature

The Annals

A working reference, not a finished one.

Curated entries are hand-researched; the research desk drafts new profiles on demand and flags what is uncertain rather than inventing it.

Method

Dates and lineages follow mainstream scholarship. Where a family line is undocumented, we say so — and cite what stands behind every claim.