Originators

Bill Phillips

Economics has a reputation for being a boring topic but the life and career of New Zealand born economist A W H Phillips was anything but boring. Engineer, crocodile…

Robert J Dickie

RJ Dickie invented, patented and marketed the world’s first stamp vending machine. His machines were in use for 50 years, 18,000 were used in Britain, with countless thousands around…

Joseph Sinel

At a unique junction where the means of industrial production met a burgeoning consumer culture, New Zealander Joseph (Jo) Sinel recognized the need for new paradigm definition. He…

Bill Hamilton

“Bill Hamilton saw the sea for the first time when he was four years old — and he was delighted. He trapped some sea water in a bottle so…

Brydone & Davidson

New Zealand has long been heralded, mythologised (and of late, analysed) as a country that ‘rode to fortune on the sheep’s back’. The $4 billion+ export food industry of…

Joseph Nathan

Glaxo SmithKline, the largest pharmaceutical group in the world, had its origins in a place far removed from the centres of world commerce: a dairy creamery in Bunnythorpe, near…

John Britten

John Britten was a revolutionary motorcycle designer whose home-brewed machine won international plaudits with its stunning design and performance. The 300+ km/h blur of speed, the smell of burning…

Burt Munro

Burt Munro, known as the fastest man from New Zealand, became internationally known for the records he broke at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah in the 1960s. In…

Richard Pearse

Richard Pearse: “Mad Pearse”, “Bamboo Dick”, self-taught inventor, prophetic designer, trail blazing aviator and eccentric visionary. On or about 31st March 1903 a reclusive New Zealand farmer Richard Pearse…

William Hudson

The Snowy Mountains (Australia) Hydro-Electric Scheme, begun in 1949, was 25 years in construction, and remains one the world’s great engineering and social achievements. Attaining its goal of irrigating…

Bruce McLaren

Team McLaren has been the most successful team in world motorsport since it appeared in 1966. McLaren cars and drivers have taken the chequered flag at Grand Prix races…

Ernest Godward

An innovator of many talents. During the 1930s he was a leading world expert on the internal combustion engine. He built power tools, eggbeaters, burglar-proof windows and hairpins. He…

Colin Murdoch

The Timaru inventor who would awaken from dreams at night with three dimensional drawings revolving through his imagination. Pieces would be added and removed: a mental version of CAD….

William Atack

William Harrington Atack, of Canterbury, was the first sports referee in the world to use a whistle to stop a game.

Today the referee’s whistle is a ubiquitous feature in…