List of people from Dunedin explained
The New Zealand city of Dunedin has produced a large number of notable people. Many are natives of the city, while others travelled to Dunedin to be educated at the University of Otago.
The arts
Visual arts
- Illustrator and engraver John Buckland Wright
- Australian war artist H. Septimus Power was born in Dunedin in 1877[1]
- Cartoonist Colin Wilson
- Caricature artist Murray Webb
- Māori painter Ralph Hotere lived and worked in Port Chalmers
- Painters Grahame Sydney, Jeffrey Harris and Claire Beynon all live in Dunedin
- Pete Wheeler, painter, lived in Dunedin for several years
- Frances Hodgkins (1869–1947), New Zealand's most celebrated expatriate painter, born in Dunedin, trained at the Dunedin School of Art and first matured here as an artist
- Alfred Henry O'Keeffe (1858–1941), prominent artist during the early 20th Century
- Colin McCahon, painter
- Rodney Kennedy, artist, critic, drama director and patron
- Children's book illustrator David Elliot currently lives in Port Chalmers
- Prominent architects Francis Petre, Edmund Anscombe, and Robert Lawson all lived and worked in Dunedin
- Lindsay Daen, sculptor
- Shona McFarlane, artist and journalist who wrote and illustrated "Dunedin, Portrait of a City" (1970, Whitcombe & Tombs,)
- Ernest Heber Thompson, artist
- Jan McLean, dollmaker
- Arthur George William Sparrow, commercial artist, photographer and businessman
Literature
- Thomas Bracken, late-nineteenth century poet who wrote the New Zealand National Anthem God Defend New Zealand and who was the first person to publish the phrase "God's Own Country"
- Nobel Prize short-listee Janet Frame, born there in 1924, died there in 2004: NZ Edge biography.
- Writer James K. Baxter, born in Dunedin in 1926 and wrote many of his plays there in the 1960s in association with Rosalie and Patric Carey's Globe Theatre
- Playwright Roger Hall
- Short story writer O. E. Middleton
- Brian Turner, poet and former Hockey International
- Catherine Chidgey, author, who now lives in Dunedin
- Writer and publisher A.H. Reed
- Philip Temple
- Writer Christine Johnston, author of the novels Shark Bell and Blessed Art Thou Among Women, which won the 1990 Heinemann Reed Fiction Award, and the short-story collection The End of the Century.
- John Sligo, born in Dunedin in 1944. A prolific author, his novel "Final Things" won the NSW Premier's Award for fiction in 1998. He died in Sydney 2010.
- Eileen Louise Soper, wrote for children as Dot of 'Dot's Little Folk' in the Otago Witness.
Drama
Music
Politics and business
- A large proportion of the country's leading companies in and beyond the twentieth century originated in Dunedin. A selection of relevant company or brand names includes Arthur Barnett, Cottonsofts, Donaghy, Fletchers, Fisher and Paykel, Fulton Hogan, Hallensteins, Methven, Mosgiel, NZI, Ravensdown, the Union Company of Sir James Mills, RadioWorks (formerly Radio Otago), Wests, Whitcoulls, and Wrightson.
- Dave Cull, Former Mayor of Dunedin (2010-2019)
- Deputy Prime Minister (1999–2008) Michael Cullen
- Pamela Tate SC, appointed Solicitor-General for Victoria, Australia in 2003, was born in Dunedin, and received one of her degrees from the University of Otago.[3]
- Ethel Benjamin, New Zealand's first female lawyer
- Mai Chen, prominent constitutional lawyer
- Bendix Hallenstein, businessman
- Frank Winfird Millar (1885–1944), public servant and union official
Science
Sport
Cricket
Netball and basketball
Rugby union
Other sports
Military
- Sir Keith Park, World War I air ace, later Air Marshal in the defence of London during World War II.
- Duncan Boyes, English recipient of the Victoria Cross in 1864 in Japan, was buried in Dunedin in 1869.
- Horace Robert Martineau, English recipient of the Victoria Cross in 1899 in South Africa, was buried in Dunedin in 1916.
- Fraser Barron, standout bomber pilot during World War II
Other
- Surveyor and explorer John Turnbull Thomson was a Dunedin resident.
- David Bain, subject of one of New Zealand's most famous legal causes célèbres was born in Dunedin.
- Rachel Armitage, community leader, welfare worker, and first female BA graduate at Oxford University.
- Presbyterian minister and social activist Rutherford Waddell spent his entire ministry in Dunedin.
- Mary Ronnie, City Librarian, first woman National Librarian and first woman National Librarian in the world.
- David Gray, the perpetrator of the 1990 Aramoana massacre in which 14 people were killed, was born in Dunedin and raised in Port Chalmers.
- Colin Bouwer, a South-African-born doctor and Head of Psychiatry at the University of Otago, spent 16 years in prison for the murder of his third wife three years after they became residents of Dunedin.
- Jean Stevenson, YWCA New Zealand General Secretary and women´s advocate.[5]
Notes and References
- Book: http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110276b.htm. Australian Dictionary of Biography. Power, Harold Septimus (1877–1951). National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/95304 Obituary, The Musical Times, Vol. 110, No. 1519 (September, 1969), p. 974
- Web site: 2003-07-08. Pamela Tate Victoria's First Female Solicitor-General. Victorian Government. 2007-09-29.
- Web site: Mayor sorry for slogan, blames media. Morris . Chris . 25 November 2008. Otago Daily Times. 2008-11-24.
- Web site: Coney . Sandra . Jean Stevenson . 21 March 2024 . Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.
