Twenty who shaped a nation

A panel of Herald journalists look back 100 years and nominate our outstanding sons and daughters

"There is no fame to rise above the crowning honour of a people's love."

Those 14 words inscribed on an obelisk high above the Waitemata Harbour at Bastion Pt remember Michael Joseph Savage, the Australian-born Prime Minister who after the Depression years of the 1930s led a Government which changed our nation.

The tribute, and the imposing Savage Memorial, were conceived by the Labour Party, which he led. But the sentiment and the high personal regard were, and are, much more widely held.

His First Labour Government laid the foundations of the welfare state - jobs, housing, health and social security. Many today will question that legacy but in its time it was a profound strategy which reignited the spirit of a young nation ravaged by global depression.

The Herald's criterion for choosing the top 20 New Zealanders of the 20th century was: for personal achievement which had an enduring influence on New Zealand's life and culture.

The other 19 also had fame, fortune, brilliance, popularity, singular triumph and longevity as well as their individual contributions to society, but none influence our lives to the extent that Savage did.

In the end, the judgment of the Herald panel must be subjective. There are many other outstanding New Zealanders in the 20th century. And there are some, like the women's suffrage leader Kate Sheppard, who lived into the 20th century but whose major work was completed in the 1890s.

The 19 who follow stood out from their peers:

* Lord Ernest Rutherford, brilliant Nelson-born Cambridge professor who split the atom in 1910, changing the course of physical research and ultimately aspects of medicine, energy production, war and industry. Winner of the Nobel Prize and the first New Zealander to be elevated to the peerage

* Sir Edmund Hillary, perhaps the most highly regarded living New Zealander and probably the best known worldwide, Hillary's conquering of Mt Everest in 1953 was peerless in its physical endeavour.

* Sir Apirana Ngata, a trailblazing Maori leader from Ngati Porou on the East Coast, an MP for 38 years continuously, Minister of Maori Affairs who instituted Maori land development programmes (ultimately giving rise to an issue which forced his resignation from the cabinet).

* The New Zealand Serviceman, for those who fought for this country. Several individuals demanded recognition, including double-VC Charles Upham and Second World War commander Sir Bernard Freyberg, but the enduring influence on society came from all who served.

* Sir Truby King, founder of Plunket, by the time of his death in 1938 had helped achieve in New Zealand the lowest infant mortality rate in the world, with 70 per cent of babies under the advice of Plunket nurses. The first private citizen to be given a state funeral.

* Dame Whina Cooper, foundation member and president of the Maori Women's Welfare League, in 1975, aged 80 walked the length of the North Island on the most famous Maori land march, becoming a face and force the whole country learned to recognise.

* Sir Murray Halberg, despite a crippling rugby injury which paralysed his left arm, became the first New Zealander to break the four-minute mile and won Olympic gold in the 5000m in 1960. Moreover, Halberg dedicated his life to helping children with disabilities through the Halberg Trust - a pre-eminent charity.

* Campbell McMeekan, throughout the 1940s and 1950s transformed many farmers from cockies into "scientists in gumboots." The founder of the Ruakura station, he pushed advanced research into improved livestock and pasture management and had a missionary zeal for ensuring farmers took notice.

* Sir James Fletcher sen, the country's first major industrialist, founding the group which became Fletcher Challenge. Played a major role after the Second World War, with the Government, in providing housing for New Zealanders.

* Colin McCahon, more than any artist this century captured the essence of who we are as New Zealanders, one of the most innovative and important painters of religious art in modern times, profoundly influenced by taha Maori.

* Dame Catherine Tizard, long-serving local body politician, first woman mayor of Auckland, first woman Governor-General, patron of the arts.

* Sir Brian Barratt-Boyes, internationally acclaimed pioneering heart surgeon from Green Lane Hospital, made history developing heart valve replacements and found a way to save babies born with congenital heart defects.

* Clarence Beeby, father of some of New Zealand's most radical education changes, director of education during 1940s and 50s who pushed equal opportunity for all.

* Kiri Te Kanawa, operatic soprano guided by Dame Sister Mary Leo who found instant international fame at Covent Garden in 1960s and became one of the world's leading divas for the last 30 years of the century.

* Sir William Pickering, Wellington-born frontier scientist who directed Jet Propulsion laboratory in California for 22 years to 1976, ran pioneering series of unmanned American space probes to Mars, Venus and the moon..

* Katherine Mansfield, our most famous writer, her short stories, poetry, letters and journals have become an essential part of the country's literature and curriculum. While she lived overseas for many years, she declared: "New Zealand is in my very bones."

* Sir James Wattie, left school at 13 but founded one of the biggest food-processing concerns in the country. Wartime contracts to supply canned vegetables to Britain and the Pacific became major foundations for peacetime expansion which put products on the tables of the nation.

* Princess Te Puea, one of the greatest Maori leaders of the middle of the century, effective head of the King movement, battler for Maori welfare, secured land for Tainui which she called Turangawaewae and re-established the seat of the Maori King, her nephew.

* Arthur Lydiard, the man behind New Zealand's golden era in athletics, coaching the legendary Peter Snell (whose long exile in the United States kept him from this list), Halberg and others to international glory. His methods changed the sport and made a small nation proud.