George Howe was born in Frankton in the Waikato and attended schools from Whangarei to Te Teko. Howe was the first professional genealogist in New Zealand and his biographies have been widely acknowledged in The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Howe also co-ran the Genealogy Department of the Latter Day Saints of New Zealand (based in Auckland) for a few years up until his early death. Nikki Walker writes that during Howe’s life time "he compiled the records of thousands of his ancestors including many Māori." Howe was proud of his British, Scottish and Māori ancestry. "There are only three copies of his work on Māori biographies. One was placed by his family with the supervisors of the Polynesian department, Genealogical Society Salt Lake City, Utah for safekeeping. He spent more than 5 years researching and typing Māori achievers in all spheres of life. The work covers some 200 years of Māori history. It has sections on all Māori members of the House of representatives, Royal Honours, Government service, Māori Kings and Queens, Leaders of the Past, Women of note, 28th Māori Battalion, Māori Airmen, the Professionals, Scholars, Religion. [it is a] 200 page booklet." Howe’s son Daniel Howe states that a lot of his unfinished writing became source material for other historians including Michael King. He also had a lengthy manuscript on the Tainui people which is stored at the Auckland Museum. This is based on the period of his English ancestors’ arrival in Kawhia in the 1820s through to the Waikato wars and beyond.
Biographical sources
- Email correspondence from Daniel Howe 8 and 9 July 1998.
- Te Iwi o Aotearoa 27 (1989): 20.
Biography
- Walker, Nikki. "Māori Biographies Compiled by George F Kiwi Howe 1960." Te Iwi o Aotearoa 22 (1989): 12.
- Walker provides background information to George Kiwi Howe’s extensive collection of biographies of key Māori identities. She reproduces his texts on Titokowaru and Whetu Marama Tirikatene.
- Walker, Nikki. "Māori Biographies Compiled by George F Kiwi Howe 1960." Te Iwi o Aotearoa 24 (1989): 17.
- Walker produces the text of Howe’s biography of Sir Apirana Ngata.
- Walker, Nikki. "Māori Biographies: Compiled by George F Kiwi Howe 1960." Te Iwi o Aotearoa 25 (1989):7.
- In this article, Walker writes of Te Iwi o Aotearoa’s project to publish the work of genealogist George Kiwi Howe (1917-1962). She calls for other contributions from ‘150 years of achievers under British rule’. Walker also provides an edited version of Howe’s biography of Sir Maui Pomare.
- Walker, Nikki. "Māori Biographies Compiled by George F Kiwi Howe 1960." Te Iwi o Aotearoa 26 (1989): 22.
- Walker includes an edited version of Howe’s biographical notes of Te Puea Herangi.
- Walker, Nikki. "Māori Biographies Compiled by George F Kiwi Howe 1960." Te Iwi o Aotearoa 27 (1989): 20.
- Walker writes of the proposed publication of George Howe’s Māori Biographies and of Te Iwi o Aotearoa’s plan to supplement Howe’s work with biographies of other Māori achievers up to the year 1990. Walker includes two of Howe’s biographies in this article: that of musician and composer Walter Smith and that of famous rugby player George Nepia.
Non-fiction
- Trace Your Own Ancestry. Utah: Desert, 1963.
- From Kent to Kawhia. Auckland, N.Z.: G. P. Howe, 1983.
- Compiled by Gwen P. Howe and the late George Howe.
Other
- "Richard Gavin McIntyre (Tiki Paaka)." Te Ao Hou 36 (1961): 4.
- Howe writes a biography of Te Arawa ‘Dick’ Park who studied at Te Aute College with Sir Apirana Ngata and Sir Peter Buck and who completed further studies at Victoria University. Park worked in the Land Court and travelled extensively with Elsdon Best and acted as a Māori Interpreter for the Commission that examined the land titles of 600,000 acres of Urewera land.