Graham Latimer, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetGraham Latimer
Māori leader, farmer
Date of Birth: 07-Feb-1926
Place of Birth: Aupouri Peninsula, New Zealand
Date of Death: 07-Jun-2016
Profession: farmer
Nationality: New Zealand
Zodiac Sign: Aquarius 
About Graham Latimer
- Sir Graham Stanley Latimer (7 February 1926 – 7 June 2016) was a New Zealand Maori leader, chosen in the late 1960s to be a new leader to resolve Maori grievances.
- He was a member of the New Zealand Maori Council from 1964, and president from 1973.
- In 1987 he initiated a successful appeal against the State-Owned Enterprises Act leading to actions against the Crown relating to land, forests, fisheries and te reo Maori (mortgaging his farm at Taipuha for the expenses).
- He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1980 Queen's Birthday Honours.He was born on the Aupouri Peninsula south of Te Kao in Northland, then a depressed area.
- His mother Lillian was Irish-Scottish and his father Graham of mixed Anglo-Saxon and Maori ancestry.
- As well as being a Pakeha–Maori marriage, the bride was Catholic and the groom Anglican, so the couple married in the local police station.
- The family lived at Pamapuria seven kilometres from Kaitaia.
- He attended three primary schools, and then went to Kaitaia District High School.
- He left after two weeks, as he was needed to help hand-milk the small family herd of 14 dairy cows on 48 acres.
- When the herd was sold because of whanau disputes, he worked on other farms.
- He enlisted in the Army in 1943, and went to Japan in 1946–47 in Jayforce as part of the army of occupation.
- In 1948 he married Emily Moore, and worked for the New Zealand Railways until 1961, becoming stationmaster at Kaiwaka in 1952.
- From 1961 he was a farmer on the Kaipara Harbour; to 1979 at Tinopai and from 1979 to 1995 at Taipuha.
- In 1995 he returned to Pamapuria.
- He was made a spokesman for Ngati Whatua (though his own hapu is Ngati Kahu from the Aupouri Peninsula) and a Maori warden in 1956.
- In 1963 he was elected to the Tai Tokerau District Maori Council in 1963 and one of three members representing te Tai Tokerau on the New Zealand Maori Council 1964.
- On the New Zealand Maori Council he was vice-president 1969 and president from 1973.
- In 1977 he was appointed one of the first three members of the Waitangi Tribunal.
- He was chairman of the Crown Forest Rental Trust from 1990, and a member of the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission between 1993 and 1998.
- He retrieved tupuna Maori from an English auction house in 1988, and stopped the public sale of human remains.
- He was active in other organisations, the Anglican General Synod, on the board of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, a member of the Alcoholic Liquor Advisory Council and was a director of several commercial enterprises.
- He was a member of the National Party, and was Maori vice-president from 1981 to 1992.
- He stood in the Northern Maori electorate in 1969 and 1972, coming second for National both times.
Read more at Wikipedia