Wall of Fame
| Grahame Sydney (Attended King’s High School 1962-66) ARTS |
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| Grahame Sydney has become one of New Zealand’s most significant and enduring artists. His work spans over 4 decades and encompasses oils, watercolours, egg tempera, lithographs, etching and photography. Rarely exhibiting, Grahame’s works are held in private collections throughout the world and represented in the collections of New Zealand’s major galleries and museums. Only occasionally collaborating with dealers, he mainly paints for a private client list. Always a meticulously slow worker, he generally produces no more than six works a year. 1967 – 1969: At the University of Otago, graduating BA (English and Geography) His triumphs are many. National tours have set records for attendance. Ninety-thousand viewers filed through Porirua’s Pataka Gallery in three months for an exhibition of his landscapes. His enigmatic portrait of his first wife, Rozzie at Pisa, was headed only by Rita Angus’ Cass in a Listener magazine survey to find New Zealand’s favourite painting. 1970: Secondary Teacher’s College, Christchurch 1971 – 1972: Taught Cromwell District High School, Central Otago 1973 – 1974: Travelled to the United Kingdom and Europe 1974 Returned to Dunedin, commencing a full-time art career 1976 – 1983 Lived and worked at Mount Pisa Station, Central Otago 1978 Frances Hodgkin’s Fellow, University of Otago, Dunedin 1983: Returned to live in Dunedin 2000: Built his house and studio in Central Otago 2003: Travelled to Antarctica as a guest of New Zealand Government (and again in 2006) 2003: Made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) 2003: Moved to Central Otago house permanently where he continues to paint, working occasionally with dealers, but mainly working to a private client listSydney has developed his own singular aesthetic apart from his contemporaries. Through his books and prints, his work has become widely accessible. His images have become icons of national culture. But no matter how familiar and often reproduced his work has become – his canvases remain as fresh and compelling as ever. |
| Y https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/kaleidoscope-grahame-sydney-1984 |
| Chris Laidlaw Attended King’s High School 1957 to 1961) SPORT |
| Chris was a Prefect in 1961. While Chris Laidlaw is inducted to the King’s High Wall of Fame as a sportsman, in truth, it involved just a few years of his remarkable life and he could have been inducted under various categories. 1959 to 1961: Chris excelled as halfback for King’s High school First Fifteen. 1962: Chris was a halfback for University A team, the Otago representative side, a South Island regional side, and the New Zealand Universities. (Age 19 years) 1963: Chris was a halfback for All Blacks on their tour of Britain and France. Selected for French Test. 1964: Chris captained a New Zealand under 23 selection on a tour of Australia and played in the first test against the Wallabies later that year. 1962 to 1966: Chris attended Otago University. 1965: Chris had established himself as the test halfback and he had a major role in each of the series wins over the Springboks in 1965. 1966: Chris played in the test match against the British Lions. 1969: Captained All Blacks in the test against Australia. Chris played 57 tests with the All Blacks, scoring 48 points. Also in 1969 he took up his Rhodes Scholarship at Merton College, Oxford where he gained an MLitt for his analysis of race-conditioned patterns of settlement in Fiji. Laidlaw was one of the first New Zealanders to play extensively overseas. He captained Oxford University Rugby Team to a win over the 1969-70 Springboks in Britain. He also spent a period in France. Despite his frequent appearances against the Springboks he later became a staunch opponent of contact with South Africa while apartheid remained in force. After this tour even though he was only 27, Laidlaw drifted away from an active role in New Zealand rugby. 1972, Laidlaw joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served as Assistant to Commonwealth Secretary-General Sonny Ramphal 1973: He created something of a media fuss with his book, “Mud in Your Eye,” which was a sardonic over-view of the state of the New Zealand game. 1986: Chris became New Zealand’s first resident High Commissioner to Harare, representing New Zealand’s interests throughout Africa. 1989: Chris was appointed Race Relations Conciliator. 1992: He became a Labour member of parliament for Wellington Central. He wasn’t re-elected in 1993 2000 to 2013: Chris hosted Radio New Zealand National’s Sunday Morning programme. 2007 to 2019: He was elected to the Wellington Regional Council. He didn’t stand for re-election in 2019. He was Chairman of the Council from 2015 to 2019. Some other achievements include:- heading the World Wildlife Fund in New Zealand, writing a column for the NZ Herald and being a TV commentator. He has shown himself a natural journalist with ability in print, radio and television. And he has not only been authoritative on rugby but also politics, the arts, and international and current affairs. He is a great example of the all-rounder King’s would pride itself on trying to produce. |
| Neville Clifford Bain (attended Kings High School 1953 – 1956) – Business |
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| Neville Bain is recognised as a truly international businessman, but like Bill Sykes in the musical Oliver he started small as a delivery boy for W. Harris, shoe retailers, with a big basket on the front of his bicycle! He left school at age 16 and worked for the Inland Revenue Office, studying part-time, he swotted day and night thereby qualifying as a chartered accountant aged 19, a chartered secretary aged 20 and winning the Hogan Prize for the best New Zealand wide exam results. In 1960 he joined the accounting firm of Anderson & Co and in 1963 moved to Cadbury Schweppes Hudson, with whom he was to spend the next 27 years, as a cost accountant. Part time study at Otago University led to him graduating with two B.Com degrees in accounting and economics, culminating in an M.Com. with honours in economics in 1968. He also found the time for public service; lecturing in management at Otago Polytechnic, becoming a JP, a vice-president of the local Marriage Guidance Council, and a Sunday school teacher; in 1972 he won the Wills Outstanding Young Man-of-the-Year Award for Otago Southland. At Cadbury’s he had risen through Financial Controller to become New Zealand Company Secretary and Financial Director. He was then sent to Cadbury’s sister organisation in Johannesburg, where he became a managing director in the first New Zealand executive to move internationally. In 1980 he was moved to the London headquarters as Group Strategic Planning Director, rising to become Deputy Group Chief Executive and Group Finance Director. In 1990, Neville joined Coats Viyella, a huge international company with branches in nearly 50 countries, an annual turnover of more than $6 billion, and employing some 60,000 people, as Group Chief Executive. He has since been Chairman of Consignia (formerly British Royal Mail), and is currently Chairman of the Institute of Directors, a Non-Executive Director (NED) chairing audit committees of several pension funds, and is a consultant in India and Russia as well as in the United Kingdom. Keenly interested in business education, he has written many papers and several books on management. But despite his many years at the highest levels of corporate business, Neville has never forgotten his roots; he has contributed significant funds to the Otago University Foundation Trust as well as delivering guest lectures. In recognition of his support and status, the University awarded him an honorary LLD in 1994, and the OU Medal for Outstanding Alumni Service in 2008. For King’s he has made a substantial financial contribution funding several prestige prizes for all-round academic excellence, and has facilitated meetings for Old Boys in the United Kingdom. |
| Michael McIntyre (Attended King’s High School from 1954 to 58) – ACADEMIC |
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| Michael McIntyre won a University Junior Scholarship while at King’s, after gaining the highest marks in New Zealand in the old exam system. At Otago he graduated with first class honours in mathematics in 1963 and won a Commonwealth scholarship to Cambridge University. In the second year of his Ph.D. at Cambridge Michael—a brilliant violinist—committed a lot of his energy into entering the annual BBC Violin Competition. He reached the semi-final round. At this time Michael was offered a place in a professional string quartet, and was sorely tempted to join it. Science can be glad that he did not. He is however,still interested in the deepest connections between mathematics and music and between science and music. From 1967-1969 after completing his PhD Michael moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Postdoctoral research associate. On returning to Cambridge in 1969 he became Assistant Director of Research in Dynamical Meteorology. Then from 1972 to 1993 he was a lecturer and then a Reader in Atmospheric Dynamics. In the following years he became Co-founder of the Cambridge Summer School in Geophysical and Environmental Fluid Dynamics (1991), Co-director, Cambridge Centre for Atmospheric Science (1992-2003), Professor of Atmospheric Dynamics (1993-2008) and Emeritus Professor (2008 – ) Michael is an international leader in meteorology and oceanography. He had a part in the discovery of the “world’s largest breaking waves” and how they are basic to understanding how the Antarctic ozone hole forms, and why the strongest stratospheric ozone depletion occurs in the southern hemisphere “even though” the chlorofluorocarbons and other chemicals causing it are emitted mainly in the northern hemisphere. His work has been recognised internationally and Michael has received many notable honours and prizes. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, was awarded the Carl-Gustav Rossby medal (the highest award of the American Meteorological Society) in 1987 and the Julius Bartels medal of the European Geophysical Society in 1999. |