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 Numerically, New Zealanders are among the rarest group of people in the world. Historically, we've blown that away with world-changing ideas. These people who have THE NEW ZEALAND EDGE are our sources of inspiration for international achievement. We have
many stories to
tell over the next few years of this project, here is the first group of our greatest
achievers from The Edge.
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Sydney Smith THE SCIENTIFIC DETECTIVE In a media age populated with forensic crime thrillers such as CSI, Roxburgh's Sir Sydney Smith (1883-1969) was the original. A forensics pioneer, he achieved world renown through the application of science to justice. From the edge of an Otago goldfield to the telling edge of a murder weapon, Smith learnt to read the stories of dead men - and in doing so changed the way crime was investigated and solved. READ MORE... |
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Sir Harold Gillies AESTHETIC RECONSTRUCTOR The introduction of more ferocious weapons and trench warfare in the First World War resulted in devastating injuries. A new type of surgery was needed. Rhinoplasty, skin grafts, and facial reconstructions have been practised for centuries. However, it was New Zealander Sir Harold Delf Gillies who standardised these techniques and established the discipline of 'plastic surgery'. READ MORE... |
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Ettie Rout GUARDIAN ANGEL OF THE ANZACS Ettie Rout was infamous for breaching social mores in sexual health and practice. An original career woman, socialist, nurse, equal rights campaigner, condom distributor, wartime Paris safe-sex brothel operator, Ettie Rout was a humanitarian who faced danger, ostracism and eventually exile. READ MORE... |
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Te Rangi Hiroa/Sir Peter Buck AOTEAROA ANTHROPOLOGIST Peter Buck’s achievements are astonishing for their diversity: pioneering and internationally renowned anthropologist, the first Maori medical doctor, a politician, administrator, soldier, sportsperson and leader of the Maori people. Through exploring the cross-cultural advantages of his birth and excercising a self-taught scientific rigour, Buck extended the edges of knowledge. READ MORE... |
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Rewi Alley GUNG HO Rewi Alley, social reformer, educator, fireman, writer, poet, translator, great internationalist, industrialist, revered citizen, potter, soldier, hero and friend of China. Edgar Snow: "Rewi Alley is unique because he has achieved greatness in a country where few foreigners ever manage to achieve an authentic ripple." The man who introduced ‘Gung Ho’ into the Western idiom. READ MORE... |
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Kate Sheppard SUFFRAGIST The leader and main figurehead of the suffragist movement in New Zealand, the first country in the world to grant universal adult suffrage to men and women equally. Kate was a source of inspiration to suffragists, both in New Zealand and throughout the world. READ MORE... |
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| Joseph Sinel BLUEPRINT FROM THE EDGE Aucklander Joseph Sinel (1889-1975) led a visionary and exuberant life as a founder of the Industrial Design movement in America. An Elam graduate, NZ Herald apprentice, graphic artist, product designer, advertising creative, brand pioneer, mixed media maestro, inspirational teacher, lover of fast cars and California; a disciplined bohemian and above all, strikingly modern. READ MORE... |
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John Britten MAVERICK MOTORCYCLE DESIGNER John Britten was a revolutionary motorcycle designer whose home-brewed machine won international ovations with its stunning design, engineering and performance. The 300+ km/h blur of speed, the smell of burning rubber and the medieval roar of the Britten V1000 motorcycle lingers over the tarmac of Kiwi myth. READ MORE... |
| 100 Design Heroes New Zealand design heroes are a broad group of innovators who inspire the view that creativity, originality and performance are embedded in our culture. Here are just over 100 people who in their own ways have been world-changing. READ MORE... |
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Bill Hamilton RIVER KING Hamilton loved speed. The free flowing Mackenzie Country rivers were his pulse and challenge. His jet enabled people to travel for the first time with pace up rivers and waterways all over the world. From his homegrown jet propulsion laboratory on the Waitaki and its tributaries, Bill Hamilton brought the jet age to the water, then took it to the world. READ MORE... |
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Jack Lovelock "COME ON JACK!!" As the first New Zealand athlete to win an Olympic gold, Jack Lovelock was edge spirit manifest, an enigmatic achiever whose running style was said to be 'artistic' in grace. His spectacular 1500m win at the 1936 Berlin Olympics began a rich history of achievement in New Zealand middle and long distance athletics, front-running for such later greats as Peter Snell, Murray Halberg and John Walker. READ MORE... |
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Richard Pearse FIRST FLYER On or about 31st March 1903 reclusive New Zealand farmer Richard Pearse climbed into his monoplane at his Waitohi property and flew for about 140 metres before crashing into a gorse hedge. "Mad Pearse": self-taught inventor, prophetic designer, trail blazing aviator, and eccentric visionary, a modern-day Icarus from down under who, against incredible odds, ingeniously sought the sun and pioneered powered flight. READ MORE... |
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Bruce McLaren DRIVER ENGINEER CONSTRUCTOR Team McLaren drivers have taken the chequered flag at 123 Grand Prix events. Aucklander Bruce McLaren was a brilliant driver with vision. He became engineer, inventor, constructor, tester and created one of the greatest motor racing teams in history. READ MORE... |
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Jean Batten HINE-O-TE-RANGI (DAUGHTER OF THE SKIES) She was the manifestation of triumph and hope through the dark days of the depression. In 1934 she smashed the world record between England and Australia by six days. In 1936 she made the first ever direct flight between England and New Zealand. Jean Batten stood for adventure, daring and exploration. READ MORE... |
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Arthur Lydiard RUNNING MAN Arthur Lydiard invented jogging. The method of building up physical fitness by gradually increasing stamina is a simple one, used by millions of men and women worldwide as part of their everyday health and fitness regime. Lydiard's methods trained New Zealand’s greatest track athletes, and helped propel New Zealand to the top of world middle-distance running. READ MORE... |
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William Pickering ROCKET MAN The launch of Sputnik in 1957 forced the United States into the space race. In the Cold War they needed to show the world that they too could launch a rocket into space. Less than three months later Explorer 1 was launched. The man behind it: William Pickering from Wellington, New Zealand. READ MORE... |
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Godfrey Bowen FASTEST SHEARER IN THE WORLD With a history steeped in agriculture it is natural that New Zealand’s shearers are known throughout the world for their skill and toughness. Only one has been invited to Buckingham Palace, appeared on late night American television and been honoured by the leader of the Soviet Union. Godfrey Bowen. READ MORE... |
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Janet Frame EDGE OF THE ALPHABET "Mixing and revolving words with the skill of a warrior handling a Taiaha, novelist Janet Frame made an pre-eminent edge of the alphabet contribution to international literature, coming as she did from the peripheries of art and society. In Aotearoa's literature she has taken a Flymo to the dictionary and reconfigured the wor(l)d.".... READ MORE... |
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Katherine Mansfield SHORT STORY MODERNISER Katherine Mansfield revolutionised the 20th Century English short story. Her best work shakes itself free of plots and endings and gives the story, for the first time, the expansiveness of the interior life, the poetry of feeling, the blurred edges of personality. Famously, Mansfield remarked "Risk, risk anything! Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth." READ MORE... |
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Edmund Hillary KING OF THE WORLD He explored places where no human being had gone before, conquered Everest and captured a world’s imagination. Yet where others would have been content to admire the view, look down and bask in the sheer individuality of achievement, for Sir Edmund Hillary it was only the beginning of a lifetime of service to others. READ MORE... |
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Alexander Aitken THE HUMAN COMPUTER New Zealander Alexander Aitken was one of the world’s most brilliant mathematical minds, able to multiply two 9-digit numbers together in his head and recite the answer in 30 seconds, or render awkward fractions into decimals to 26 places in under five seconds. His extraordinary abilities were studied by psychologists in Britain during the 1920s. READ MORE... |
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Nancy Wake THE WHITE MOUSE Nancy Wake was the Allies' most decorated servicewoman of WWII, and the Gestapo’s most-wanted person. They code-named her 'The White Mouse'. She led an army of 7,000 Maquis troops in guerrilla warfare to sabotage the Nazis. Nancy Wake was born in Wellington in 1912. READ MORE... |
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Keith Park SAVIOUR OF BRITAIN "If any one man won the Battle of Britain, he did. I do not believe it is realised how much that one man, with his leadership, his calm judgement and his skill, did to save, not only this country, but the world." Lord Tedder – Chief of the Royal Air Force, February 1947. READ MORE... |
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Charles Upham VICTORIA CROSS AND BAR Acknowledged widely as the outstanding solider of the Second World War, New Zealander Charles Upham is the only combatant solider to receive the Victoria Cross and Bar for his exceptional bravery in Crete and in the Western Desert. READ MORE... |
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Ernest Rutherford ATOM MAN The creator of modern atomic physics and forerunner of the nuclear age, one of the greatest scientists of the twentieth century. Awarded the Nobel Prize in 1908. The man who "tunnelled into the very material of God": inventor, experimenter and Nelson farm boy. READ MORE... |
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Maurice Wilkins DNA ENABLER Nobel Prize winner in Physiology and Medicine in 1962. Research undertaken by New Zealander Maurice Wilkins helped lead to the discovery in 1953 by James Watson and Francis Crick of the DNA molecule structure - the very essence of life itself. The discovery revolutionised biology and medicine. READ MORE... |
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Alan MacDiarmid PLASTIC FANTASTIC "Information Age pioneer," Alan MacDiarmid and his colleagues discovered that plastics could conduct electricity. Application of the research is seen to be the future of information technology. Awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize for chemistry, MacDiarmid lives by the sign in his study: “I am a very lucky person and the harder I work the luckier I seem to be.” READ MORE... |
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Allan Wilson REVOLUTIONARY EVOLUTIONIST Revolutionised the study of human evolution; shortlisted for the Nobel Prize and the only New Zealander to win the US MacArthur "Genius" Award. Allan Wilson’s examination into the origins of humanity through biochemistry was revolutionary, flying in the face of anthropological thinking of the time. READ MORE... |
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Beatrice Tinsley QUEEN OF THE COSMOS New Zealander Beatrice Tinsley was a world leader in modern cosmology and one of the most creative and significant theoreticians in modern astronomy. Her scientific work has been described as "opening doors to the future study of the evolutions of stars, galaxies and even the Universe itself." READ MORE... |
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Edward Joseph Nathan GLAXO FOUNDER Joseph Nathan was a New Zealand entrepreneur with extraordinary foresight. In 1906 he founded Glaxo, producer of the dried milk formula that became a household name for infant health. On a world scale, he was a pioneer of direct marketing and branding. The Glaxo name now fronts one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, GlaxoSmithKline. READ MORE... |
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Thomas Brydone and William Davidson (left) CHILLY BIN BILLIONAIRES New Zealand has long been heralded as a country that 'rode to fortune on the sheep's back'. The next time you carve into a fillet of tender Kiwi lamb sirloin, now exported to more than 190 countries around the world, you might like to pause to chew on the fascinating story of how the frozen meat export industry began: a story of technology, determination, vision and pioneering colonialism. READ MORE... |
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Colin Murdoch DREAMER FOR MILLIONS Colin Murdoch designed and invented the disposable syringe, a device that has saved millions of human lives. He also conceived and developed the tranquilliser dart gun, which has saved the lives of millions of animals. He is an understated New Zealander who can claim to have revolutionised medical and veterinary science. READ MORE... |
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Ernest Godward INVENTOR, OVER-ACHIEVER, INVERCARGILLITE An innovator of many talents. During the 1930s he was the world's leading expert on the internal combustion engine. He built power tools, eggbeaters, burglar proof windows and hairpins. He was a champion sportsman, a fine musician, a talented painter, an expert on international weapons. In short Ernest Godward was a brilliant over-achiever. READ MORE... |
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Robert Dickie CHAMPION OF AUTOMATION RJ Dickie invented and patented the world’s first stamp vending machine. His machines were in use for 50 years, 18,000 were used in Britain, with countless others around the world. The machine that won highest honours at the 1909 Seattle Expo came from a New Zealander with a single idea. READ MORE... |
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William Atack REFEREE WITH A FLASH OF INSPIRATION William Harrington Atack of Canterbury was the first sports' referee in the world to use a whistle to stop a game. READ MORE... |
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Tex Morton BOUNDARY RIDER Tex Morton lived a life of breath-taking achievement, attaining mastery, fortune and international fame as a recording star, stage artist, circus entrepreneur, Hollywood screen actor and world authority in hypnotherapy. He was a first original antipodean voice. Tex is a legend from the edge. READ MORE... |
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Frances Alda INTERNATIONAL DIVA Born Christchurch in 1879, grew up in Melbourne, to Europe in 1902. Sang at La Scala, and triumphed at the New York Metropolitan Opera. A proud New Zealander, recorder of traditional Maori songs. Famous across America as an opera star, showered with widespread tributes on her death in 1952. READ MORE... |
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Harold Williams VOICE OF THE WORLD Harold Williams is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's greatest linguist, said to have spoken over 58 languages fluently. He was foreign editor of The Times, "the most brilliant foreign correspondent" his generation had known. Friend of statesmen and companion of writers HG Wells and Hugh Walpole. READ MORE... |
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Robert Burchfield DICTIONARY DON Hailed by the Chicago Tribune as "the greatest living lexicographer", Dr Robert Burchfield is regarded as the pre-eminent lexicographer and linguistic scholar of our age. As editor of the Oxford English Dictionary and responsible for its revision, Burchfield has played a crucial role in the study of the sources and development of the English language. READ MORE... |
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William Hudson SNOWY MOUNTAIN ENGINEER New Zealand Engineer Sir William Hudson was the man and motivator behind the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. It is acclaimed as one of the great engineering achievements of the 20th Century, that not only irrigated the Australian interior and generated hydro-electricity, but changed the nature of Australian culture. READ MORE... |
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Aitken | Alda | Alley
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Britten |
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