Elsdon Best

Elsdon Best (1856 – 1931) was born and lived the first years of his life in Tawa but moved to Thorndon with his family aged 9 after his father took a senior position in the Treasury Department. As a young man he fought in the New Zealand Wars which sparked an interest in Māori culture and society. After a period of living overseas he returned to NZ and shortly after became a foundation member of the Polynesian Society in 1891. In 1910 he was appointed as an ethnographer by the Dominion Museum (eventually to become Te Papa) which enabled him to begin a more in-depth study of Māori culture.  His best known published works are his study of the Māori history of Wellington Harbour, The Land of Tara (1919), a systematic survey of traditional Māori culture, The Maori, published in two volumes (1924) and his monumental study of the people of Te Ururewa, Tuhoe, the Children of the Mist (1925). Elsdon Best died in Wellington in 1931 aged 75.

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