The memory of charity queen Dame Rosie Horton will live on in the form of a five-year brain research fellowship at the University of Auckland. Photo / Ashburton Guardian
The memory of charity queen Dame Rosie Horton will live on in the form of a five-year brain research fellowship at the University of Auckland. Photo / Ashburton Guardian
Auckland philanthropist Michael Horton has donated $2 million towards a brain research fellowship in memory of his late wife, Dame Rosie Horton.
The money will be used to establish the Dame Rosie Horton Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the Centre for Brain Research, at the University of Auckland.
Horton, whose familyowned Wilson & Horton, publishers of the New Zealand Herald until 1996, said his late wife had been a long-time supporter of the centre.
The prestigious fellowship will fund a high-calibre researcher for five years to conduct research into the fields of neuroscience and brain-related issues, including concussion from sporting injuries, dementia, autism, brain cancer, Parkinson’s or growing brain cells.
Centre director Sir Richard Faull said applicants would be judged on their merits and they would need to be passionate about their area of research. The successful applicant was likely to be a New Zealander but he did not rule out overseas researchers.
“It [the research] would have to be relevant to Aotearoa New Zealand.”
The centre aims to raise at least another $1m so the Rosie Horton fellowship could continue in perpetuity. Faull hopes friends and colleagues of Auckland’s charity queen – “people who loved Rosie”- would contribute to the fund in her memory.
Once the target has been reached, interviewing of researchers would begin, he said. If additional funds were raised, the centre would establish a second fellowship.
Faull described Horton as a wonderful person, and a close and dear friend.
“It is the best recognition I can give to her.”
She had supported the centre for brain research since its inception in 2009, with other “ambassadors” including Dame Jenny Gibbs, the late Sir John Graham and David Mace.
Dame Jenny Gibbs, Sir Richard Faull and Dame Rosie Horton at a launch event for the Centre for Brain Research neurosurgery campaign in 2013.
Horton said his wife had considered Faull an outstanding man and researcher.
“She thought he was worthy of support so I’m following up on that.”
The Hortons have supported various areas of academic study including the ongoing Michael and Dame Rosie Horton Prize in English Literature, established in 2014 in memory of journalist and writer Marcia Russell.
The family also have the Robert Horton Trust in memory of Michael Horton’s late son, which continues to donate to various charities.
Rosie Horton, who died in May, aged 83, supported and raised millions of dollars for countless charities in her 40 years of fundraising.
Even after her death, her legacy will live on in the form of two generous bequests in her will, one to the Starship Foundation, the other to the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation.
Dame Rosie Horton and her husband Michael at the Herald's 150th birthday party at the Auckland Art Gallery. Photo / Richard Robinson
Horton said his late wife was very good at what she did.
“She realised it’s not about writing letters. It’s about getting out and about – foot leather on pavement stuff. It’s not just a matter of writing cheques. People liked dealing with her.”
She travelled around New Zealand, supporting and raising funds for hundreds of charities.
“Frankly she came home at 5 o’clock and I wouldn’t know what she had been doing all day.”
Since his wife’s death he had been amazed at the number of charities who had contacted him to say how grateful they were for her support.
“I didn’t even know they [the charities] existed or that Rosie had any association with them.”
Philanthropists Rosie and Michael Horton at their home in Sanctuary Cove, Queensland, with some of the contemporary Aboriginal art that will be donated to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Horton, who said he missed his wife “immensely”, is now organising the transfer of a multi-million dollar collection of Aboriginal paintings, sculptural objects and weavings by significant artists to the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Rosie Horton collected pieces, many of which she described as ”living, breathing” works, for more than two decades and got to know many of the artists well.
The collection, which amounts to hundreds of pieces, was mostly kept at the couple’s home in Sanctuary Cove, Queensland, and is thought to be worth more than $10m. The Hortons had earlier promised to donate the collection in its entirety to the gallery on the death of one or the other.
