Famous people who grew up or lived in New Zealand

Billy T James1948–1959

📍 Leamington, Cambridge, Waikato 3432, New Zealand

I was born William Taitoko and grew up in Leamington, across the river from Cambridge, in the green heart of the Waikato — Tainui country, with the Waikato River and Taupiri mountain not…

Bruce McLaren1937–1958

📍 Upland Road, Remuera, Auckland 1050, New Zealand

I grew up above my father's service station and garage on Upland Road in Remuera, Auckland. My father, Les, had driven petrol tankers before buying the business in 1936, and he was also a…

Burt Munro1920–1978

📍 Bainfield Road, Invercargill 9810, New Zealand

I spent my life in a little shed in Invercargill, at the bottom of the world, with a 1920 Indian Scout motorcycle and an impossible idea. For decades I tinkered in that cramped workshop …

Colin McCahon1953–1960

📍 McCahon House, 67 Otitori Bay Road, Titirangi, Auckland 0604, New Zealand

I grew up in Dunedin, and as a boy I watched a sign-writer painting letters on a shop window and was entranced by the shapes of words; that sight, and the light over the Otago hills, stayed…

Dame Whina Cooper1895–1994

📍 West Coast Road, Panguru, Hokianga, Northland 0473, New Zealand

My home for many years was at Panguru, on the West Coast Road above the Hokianga Harbour, where my husband William and I raised our children. It was a real country house — a wood stove, a…

Dan Carter1982–2000

📍 Southbridge, Canterbury, New Zealand

Dan Carter grew up in Southbridge, a small farming town on the Canterbury Plains, about forty-five kilometres south of Christchurch. His father, Neville, was a builder and a devoted member…

David Lange1977–2005

📍 Māngere, Auckland 2022, New Zealand

I made my home and my political base in Māngere, the South Auckland electorate I represented for nearly three decades — a place of Pacific families, state houses and working people, the…

Ernest Rutherford1871–1875

📍 Brightwater, Tasman, New Zealand

I was born at Spring Grove, near Brightwater, south of Nelson, in August 1871, the fourth of twelve children. My father, James, was a Scottish wheelwright and engineer who turned his hand…

Helen Clark1950–1967

📍 Te Pahu, Waikato, New Zealand

Helen Clark grew up on her family's sheep and beef farm at Te Pahu, on the slopes of Mount Pirongia in the Waikato, the eldest of four daughters of George and Margaret Clark. Her father was…

Hōne Heke1807–1850

📍 Kaikohe, Northland, New Zealand

Ko au ko Hōne Heke Pōkai. I was born around 1807 in the Bay of Islands, of Ngāpuhi descent, and I became the first rangatira to sign Te Tiriti o Waitangi in February 1840. I signed in good…

Jacinda Ardern1990–1998

📍 Morrinsville, Waikato, New Zealand

Jacinda Ardern spent her early childhood in Murupara, a struggling timber town in the eastern Bay of Plenty, where her father, Ross, was the local police officer. She has said that seeing…

James Carroll (Timi Kara)1857–1926

📍 Wairoa, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand

Ko au ko Timi Kara, ko James Carroll hoki. I was born on the 28th of October 1857 at Wairoa in Hawke's Bay, of Ngāti Kahungunu and Irish descent, and I became one of the most significant…

Janet Frame1931–1943

📍 56 Eden Street, Oamaru 9400, New Zealand

I grew up in this little house at 56 Eden Street, Oamaru, the third of five children of George and Lottie Frame. My father was a railway worker, and we had moved from town to town across…

Jean Batten

📍 Rotorua, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand

I was born in Rotorua and grew up breathing the sulphur-tinged air and the particular freedom that comes from being raised in a place that feels slightly apart from the world. My mother…

Jennie2006–2010

📍 Auckland, New Zealand

Jennie Kim grew up in Seoul, an only child, and at about eight she went on a family trip to Australia and New Zealand. In New Zealand her mother asked whether she liked it there and whether…

Jonah Lomu1975–1995

📍 Mangere, Auckland, New Zealand

I grew up in Māngere, South Auckland, in a community that was tough and tight-knit — Pacific Island and Māori families living close together, looking after each other's children, finding…

Kate Sheppard1888–1902

📍 83 Clyde Road, Ilam, Christchurch 8041, New Zealand

In 1888 Walter and I built a house at 83 Clyde Road in Christchurch, and it became the headquarters of a revolution. Around my drawing-room table the suffragists planned, wrote and gathered…

Katherine Mansfield1888–1893

📍 Katherine Mansfield House & Garden, 25 Tinakori Road, Thorndon, Wellington 6011, New Zealand

I was born upstairs in this narrow Italianate house in Thorndon in 1888, into a crowd of women — my mother, my grandmother, two aunts, my sisters and a maid — while my father climbed the…

Keith Holyoake1904–1983

📍 Pahiatua, Tararua, New Zealand

I was born Keith Jacka Holyoake on the 11th of February 1904 in Pahiatua, a small town in the Tararua district of the North Island, the son of a farmer. I left school at twelve to work on…

King Tāwhiao1825–1894

📍 Ngāruawāhia, Waikato, New Zealand

Ko au ko Tāwhiao, te Kīngi tuarua o te Kīngitanga. I was born around 1825 of Waikato and Ngāti Mahuta descent, and I became the second Māori King in 1860 following the death of my father…

Kiri Te Kanawa1944–1956

📍 Gisborne, New Zealand

Kiri Te Kanawa was born in Gisborne in 1944 and adopted at five weeks old by Tom and Nell Te Kanawa. Tom was Māori and Nell was Pākehā, a strong-willed woman who loved music and was…

Lorde1996–2014

📍 Devonport, Auckland, New Zealand

Ella Yelich-O'Connor grew up in Devonport and Bayswater, leafy seaside suburbs on Auckland's North Shore, across the harbour from the city. Her mother, Sonja Yelich, is an award-winning…

Lydia Ko2003–2013

📍 North Shore, Auckland, New Zealand

Lydia Ko was born in Seoul in 1997 and moved with her family to Auckland's North Shore when she was four, settling near Lake Pupuke and its golf course. Her parents wanted a calmer life and…

Māui Pōmare1876–1930

📍 Ōnaera, near Urenui, Taranaki, New Zealand

Ko au ko Māui Wiremu Pita Naera Pōmare. I was born around 1876 at Ōnaera, near Urenui in Taranaki, of Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Toa descent, and I became one of the Young Māori Party…

Neil Finn1958–1976

📍 Te Awamutu, Waikato, New Zealand

Neil Finn grew up in Te Awamutu, a farming town in the Waikato, the youngest of four children of Dick and Mary Finn. His father was an accountant and a keen jazz fan, and his mother, who…

Paige Hareb1990–2008

📍 New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand

Paige Hareb was born at New Plymouth Hospital in June 1990, and grew up near New Plymouth on the Taranaki coast of New Zealand's North Island, in the shadow of Mount Taranaki, where…

Peter Fraser1884–1950

📍 Northland, Wellington, New Zealand

I was born Peter Fraser on the 28th of August 1884 in Fearn, a village in Ross-shire in the Scottish Highlands, and I arrived in New Zealand in 1910 as a young socialist organiser…

Peter Jackson1961–1980

📍 Pukerua Bay, Porirua, Wellington, New Zealand

Peter Jackson grew up in Pukerua Bay, a small seaside village on the coast about forty minutes north of Wellington, the only child of Bill and Joan Jackson, who had emigrated from England…

Peter Snell1938–1949

📍 Opunake, Taranaki, New Zealand

I was born in Opunake, a small town on the Taranaki coast, in December 1938, beneath the great cone of Mount Taranaki and beside the wild beaches of the Tasman Sea. My father was an…

Pōtatau Te Wherowhero1800–1860

📍 Ngāruawāhia, Waikato, New Zealand

Ko au ko Pōtatau Te Wherowhero. I was born around 1800 of Waikato and Ngāti Mahuta descent, and I became the first Māori King — Te Kīngi Māori — in 1858 at Ngāruawāhia, where the Waikato…

Rewi Maniapoto1807–1894

📍 Kihikihi, Waikato, New Zealand

Ko au ko Rewi Maniapoto. I was born around 1807 of Ngāti Maniapoto descent, and my name is most remembered for the words spoken at Ōrākau in April 1864, when the Crown's forces besieged our…

Richard Pearse1898–1911

📍 Waitohi, near Temuka, South Canterbury, New Zealand

I grew up on my family's farm at Waitohi, near Temuka in South Canterbury, the fourth of nine children of a Cornish-born farmer. I was always more interested in machines than in farming. I…

Richie McCaw1980–1998

📍 Kurow, Waitaki, New Zealand

Richie McCaw grew up on a farm in the Hakataramea Valley, a remote high-country valley in South Canterbury near the Waitaki River, where sheep stations run up into tussock hills. His…

Robert Muldoon1921–1939

📍 Western Springs, Auckland 1022, New Zealand

I grew up in modest circumstances in Auckland, around Western Springs — an only child whose father was lost to illness when I was eight, leaving my mother and my formidable grandmother to…

Rowena Jackson1926–1934

📍 Invercargill, Southland, New Zealand

I was born in Invercargill, at the southern tip of New Zealand's South Island, in February 1926, and spent my early childhood there, in a flat, windswept town of wide streets, sheep country…

Russell Crowe1978–1984

📍 Auckland, New Zealand

Russell Crowe was born in Wellington in 1964 and moved to Sydney with his family at four. His parents, Alex and Jocelyn, worked as caterers on film and television sets, and young Russell…

Sir Āpirana Ngata1874–1950

📍 Te Araroa, East Cape, New Zealand

Ko au ko Āpirana Turupa Ngata. I was born on the 3rd of July 1874 at Te Araroa on the East Cape, of Ngāti Porou descent, and I became the first Māori to graduate from a New Zealand…

Sir Edmund Hillary

📍 Tuakau, South Auckland, New Zealand

I grew up in Tuakau, south of Auckland, where my father ran a beekeeping business and a small newspaper. Our home was simple but full of ambition and hard work. From those early years I…

Sir Peter Buck (Te Rangi Hīroa)1877–1951

📍 Urenui, Taranaki, New Zealand

Ko au ko Te Rangi Hīroa, ko Māui Pōmare hoki. I was born Peter Henry Buck on the 15th of October 1877 at Urenui in Taranaki, of Ngāti Mutunga and Irish descent. I qualified as a medical…

Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana1918–1939

📍 Ōrākeinui homestead, Rātana Pā, Rangitīkei, Manawatū-Whanganui, New Zealand

I was a farmer here at Ōrākeinui, my family's homestead, when on the eighth of November 1918 I stood on my own veranda and watched a cloud come in off the Tasman Sea toward the house. It…

Taika Waititi1975–1993

📍 Raukokore, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand

Taika Waititi grew up between Wellington, with his mother, and Raukōkore, on the remote eastern coast of the Bay of Plenty, with his father. His father, Taika Waititi senior, was a farmer…

Tāmati Wāka Nene1780–1871

📍 Hokianga, Northland, New Zealand

Ko au ko Tāmati Wāka Nene. I was born in the 1780s in the Hokianga, of Ngāti Hao and Ngāpuhi descent, and I spent my life navigating the most complex political moment in Māori history — the…

Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu1931–2006

📍 Ngāruawāhia, Waikato, New Zealand

Ko au ko Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu. I was born on the 23rd of July 1931 at Ngāruawāhia, the daughter of King Koroki, and I became the Māori Queen — the first woman to hold the…

Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki1832–1893

📍 Poverty Bay, Gisborne, New Zealand

Ko au ko Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki. I was born around 1832 of Rongowhakaata descent in the Poverty Bay region, and I was deported without trial to the Chatham Islands in 1866, accused…

Te Puea Hērangi1883–1952

📍 Ngāruawāhia, Waikato, New Zealand

Ko au ko Te Puea Hērangi. I was born on the 9th of November 1883 at Ngāruawāhia, granddaughter of King Tāwhiao, and I dedicated my life to the restoration of Waikato dignity after the…

Te Whiti-o-Rongomai1830–1907

📍 Parihaka, Taranaki, New Zealand

Ko au ko Te Whiti-o-Rongomai. I was born around 1830 at Parihaka, on the Taranaki coast beneath the mountain, and I spent my life building a community that answered violence with peace…

Tohu Kākahi1828–1907

📍 Parihaka, Taranaki, New Zealand

Ko au ko Tohu Kākahi. I was born around 1828 of Te Ātiawa descent, and I stood alongside Te Whiti-o-Rongomai at Parihaka as the co-leader of a movement that chose peace as its weapon. We…

Valerie Adams1984–2002

📍 Māngere, Auckland, New Zealand

Valerie Adams was born in Rotorua in 1984 to Lilika Ngauamo, from Tonga, and Sydney Adams, an Englishman who had many children. Her parents separated when she was small, and she moved with…