Dr Peter Buck

Peter Henry Buck (1877? – 1951) regarded his Māori and Pakeha ancestry as equally important. His mother was from Ngati Mutunga, while his father was an Irishman who had come to New Zealand via the Australian goldfields. After attending Te Aute College in Hawke's Bay, Buck went on to study medicine at Otago University where he excelled academically and in sport. After graduating in 1904 and working for a year as a house surgeon at Dunedin Hospital, he returned to the North Island where he worked with Maui Pomare to improve health and hygiene in Maori settlements. In 1909 he drifted into politics becoming MP for Northern Maori but resigned from parliament in 1914. At the outbreak of WWI he signed up as an army medical officer and landed at Gallipoli. He transferred to combat duty and saw action as second in command of the NZ Pioneer Battalion in France and Belgium. In the 1920s he decided to pursue his love of anthropology and made many journeys throughout the Pacific studying Polynesian culture. He became a Research Fellow of Anthropology at Bishop Museum in Hawaii, then Visiting Professor of Anthropology at Yale University, and finally the Director of the Bishop Museum. He was knighted in 1946. Peter Buck died of cancer in Honolulu in 1951 and his ashes were returned to NZ in 1953.

See the link to the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography for further information.