Kendrick Smithyman



Sir Keith Sinclair, CBE (5 December 1922 – 20 June 1993) was a poet and noted historian of New Zealand.

Born and raised in Auckland, Sinclair was a student at Auckland University College, which was then part of the University of New Zealand. He was awarded a Ph.D. at the College and was made a professor of history at the University of Auckland in 1963.

In the 1969 general election he was the Labour Party candidate for Eden. He won the electorate on the night, but was defeated 3 weeks later on the postal ballot by only 67 votes.

Sinclair won widespread acclaim for his first book of history, The Origins of the Maori Wars (1957). His next book, A History of New Zealand (1959), is often regarded as a classic in New Zealand history. The book remains in print, being revised several times, the last in 1991. In 1967 he founded the New Zealand Journal of History.

In both his poetry and his work as a historian, Sinclair was a nationalist, in the sense that he was concerned with forging a national identity for New Zealand that was independent of its colonial origins.

He taught history at the University of Auckland until his retirement in 1987. Halfway Round the Harbour, an autobiography, was published posthumously in 1993. In 2003, the University of Auckland established the Keith Sinclair Chair in History in his honour.

He was awarded a CBE in 1983 and knighted for services to history in 1985.

In 2005, he was named one of New Zealand's Top 100 History Makers.

History

 * 1957: The Origins of the Maori Wars
 * 1959: ''A History of New Zealand
 * 1965: ''William Pember Reeves: New Zealand Fabian
 * 1967: The Liberal Government, 1891–1912: First Steps Towards a Welfare State
 * 1976: Walter Nash (1976)
 * 1982: A Soldier's View of Empire: the Reminiscences of James Bodell (as editor)
 * 1986: A Destiny Apart: New Zealand's Search for a National Identity
 * 1990: The Oxford Illustrated History of New Zealand (as editor)
 * 1991: Kinds of Peace: Maori People After the Wars, 1870-85
 * TVNZ Bateman New Zealand Encyclopaedia CD-ROM 2nd Edition

Poetry

 * 1952: Songs for a Summer and Other Poems
 * 1954: Strangers or Beasts: Poems
 * 1963: A Time to Embrace
 * 1973: The Firewheel Tree
 * 1993: Moontalk

Other

 * The Reefs of Fire (1977) – a children's book