Women

Alice Houston-Page

Posted on September 27 2025

Alice Houston-Page completed her BA(Hons) at the University of Otago Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka in 2023. Her Honours dissertation focused on the anti-nuclear activism of an Ōtepoti women’s group in the 1960s. The group produced a petition protesting French nuclear testing in Oceania that ultimately received over 13,000 signatures from New Zealand women. Alice has a particular interest in post-war histories

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Delwyn Blondell

Posted on January 6 2025

I currently work as a freelance historian. I have worked on private contracts including those utilising nineteenth century Native Land Court records to provide evidence in High Court cases, focusing on Tamaki Makaurau and the Manawatū region.  I have also produced engaging accounts of genealogical research for an Auckland businessman and his family, leading to two privately produced volumes. I

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Samantha Owens

Posted on May 28 2024

Samantha Owens is a freelance music historian based in Karori, Wellington. She has published widely on the performance cultures and practices of Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, 1850–1950, as well as on the music history of early modern Europe, 1660–1760. Her monograph, The Well-Travelled Musician: John Sigismond Cousser and Musical Exchange in Baroque Europe (Boydell Press, 2017), was funded by an

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Georgie Craw

Posted on October 26 2023

I am a researcher, writer and oral historian based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. I have a particular interest in gender, race, and environmental histories.   I have a Master of Arts in History with First Class Honours from the University of Auckland. My thesis, ‘A world beyond the waters: Māori travel in the Tasman World, 1793-1839’, was shortlisted for the

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Elizabeth Bowyer

Posted on September 20 2023

I am Elizabeth (Libby). I’ve completed my MA and PhD in History at Te Herenga Waka Victoria – University of Wellington. In 2024 I received a Judith Binney Writing Award which I am using to adapt my PhD thesis, ‘Women Contracting in Law c. 1840–1920: Gender and Settler Colonialism in the Courts of Aotearoa New Zealand’, for publication. I have

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Natalie Looyer

Posted on July 12 2023

I completed my PhD in History at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington in 2025. My research explored the growth of rock climbing in Aotearoa from 1960 to 2020, using oral history as a key research method. I received a 2026 Judith Binney Writing Award to convert my thesis into a book. I have worked as an oral

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Sarah Ell

Posted on September 21 2021

I am an Auckland-based writer and researcher with a background in book writing and publishing, specialising in New Zealand history. I have a BA in History and a Master of Creative Writing with First Class Honours from Auckland University. Over the past 25 years, I have published a range of books for children and adults, many with a focus on

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Ruth Greenaway

Posted on September 21 2021

I am passionate about recording the stories of people, families, local communities, businesses, and not-for-profit/community organisations. I am experienced in oral history interviewing, research, writing and publishing. I work with graphic designers, editors and publishers. I studied New Zealand, Australian and Pacific history at Victoria University as well as theatre, and women’s studies. I also have a post-graduate Diploma from

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Randolph Hollingsworth

Posted on September 21 2021

Independent Scholar, working on a place-based and cross-cultural history of the 1885 tour of New Zealand by Mary Clement Leavitt, world missionary for the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (see work in progress at hollingsworth.wordpress.com). Women’s history offers an interesting lens by which to view mainstream narratives, and critical inquiry provides new insights into our everyday stories of news and community-based

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Rachel Patrick

Posted on September 21 2021

I am an independent historian based in Kāpiti in the Wellington region. I have broad-ranging interests in New Zealand social and cultural history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. My research interests and specialty areas include the history of grief, the history of the family, women’s and gender history, the history of the First World War, and health and education

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Philippa Werry

Posted on September 21 2021

I grew up in Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland and New Plymouth, and studied English and Greek at the University of Auckland, graduating with an MA in Middle English. Later I worked at the Parliamentary Library, and as a law librarian in Wellington and London. I now live in Wellington. I write fiction, non-fiction, plays and poetry, primarily for children and young

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Niki Francis

Posted on September 21 2021

Kia ora! I am a Pākehā New Zealander of English, German and Highland Scottish origin who has lived in 10 cities in 6 countries and worked in a wide range of occupations. I have a PhD in history from the Australian National University (2015) where I wrote a thesis in the National Centre of Biography about the Aotearoa New Zealand-born

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Michelle Smith

Posted on September 21 2021

Having completed a BA (History and Education) in 1999 and a BA Honours (History) in 2005, at the University of Auckland, and worked in the disability sector for a number of years, I went back to university on a doctoral scholarship. In 2009, I completed my PhD, ‘Assessing Gender in the Construction of Scottish Identity c.1286-c.1586’, which was conferred in

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Margaret Lovell-Smith

Posted on September 21 2021

Margaret’s most recent book ‘I Don’t Believe in Murder’: Standing up for peace in World War I Canterbury was published by Canterbury University Press in 2023. Prior to writing the book she was the lead researcher and writer for the voicesagainstwar.nz website, launched in 2016. She has previously written about Canterbury women for the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, edited

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Karen Stade

Posted on September 21 2021

Following a journalism career in Nelson I elected to focus on what I loved writing about – history. Several books written to mark school anniversaries followed, along with a commission to research and write history stories for The Prow http://www.theprow.org.nz/. Meet You At The Church Steps, an illustrated history of a city landmark, followed. A Nelson Provincial Museum commission led

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Karin Speedy

Posted on September 21 2021

As a historian, researcher, writer, literary scholar, linguist and translator, my work focuses on the tensions at the intersections (both geographical and textual) of contact between Indigenous and settler populations in the colonial and postcolonial Francophone and Anglophone worlds. I am especially interested in creolisation and anti-colonial resistance and my writing reflects critically on trans-imperial networks, horizontal mobilities, slavery and forced

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