On 27 September 1974 New Zealanders woke to the news Dr Bill Sutch, a famous economist, historian, and former senior government official had been arrested and accused of spying for Soviet Russia. He was later found not guilty, but over the last 50 years, suspicion has swirled, and new evidence has been revealed. Check our RNZ's award Winning Podcast The Service for more about the history of the SIS in New Zealand.
Check our RNZ's award Winning Podcast The Service for more about the history of the SIS in New Zealand
Further reading:
Freddie Angell was New Zealand's most notorious wildlife smuggler. His repeated attempts at stealing and exporting native wildlife in the 1990s, including Kea and Tuatara, made him all but a household name. Black Sheep speaks to documentary-maker Andy MacDonald about his extraordinary story.
Early NZ missionary Thomas Kendall arrived in London in 1820 with the Ngāpuhi Rangatira Hongi Hika. He would return to Aotearoa a year later with the first ever written dictionary of Te Reo Māori, a newly won clerical collar ...and more than 300 muskets.
Early Missionary Thomas Kendall facilitated the sale of hundreds of muskets to Ngāpuhi Māori, helping to enable the bloodiest wars in New Zealand history. But there's more to Kendall's story. He was instrumental in the transformation of Te Reo Māori into a written language, and became so fascinated by Māori spirituality that he (in his own words) "almost completely turned from a Christian to a Heathen".
Thomas Kendall was among the very first missionaries to arrive in Aotearoa. In 1814 the devoted Calvinist and former schoolteacher threw caution to the wind, taking himself, his wife and five children to live alongside Māori at Rangihoua in the Bay of Islands.
Kendall had dreams of founding a school, teaching Māori to read and write - and eventually converting them to the Christian faith.
It all went wrong almost immediately. The school failed, Kendall fought bitterly with his fellow missionaries, his wife gave birth to another man's child, and he swiftly discovered the only way for the mission to survive in the Bay of Islands was by trading muskets to Māori - particularly the famous Ngāpuhi Rangatira Hongi Hika.
Over the next decade, Thomas Kendall facilitated the sale of hundreds of muskets to Māori, helping to enable the bloodiest wars in New Zealand history: The Musket Wars.
However, Kendall's most important legacy was formed during a trip to England in 1820 alongside Hongi Hika and another Ngāpuhi chief, Waikato. Together with an academic at Cambridge University, Kendall, Hongi and Waikato would create the first dictionary and grammar of Te Reo Māori.
In the first of a two part series of Black Sheep, William Ray speaks to religious historian Peter Lineham Professor Emeritus at Massey University and Ngāti Rarawa kaumatua Haami Piripi about the complex, fraught story of Thomas Kendall.
Further reading:
In the 1900s a series of lurid headlines were published in the New Zealand Truth about George Howe, a "Beastly Brothel-keeper" who pimped out underage girls from his shop on Wellington's Adelaide Road. But what Truth found most "beastly" about Howe, is that he was Chinese. Black Sheep looks at the case of George Howe, and the "editorial hate-crimes" of what was once NZ's most influential newspaper.
Contains discussion of underage prostitution and quotes racist slurs which featured in the NZ Truth Newspaper i.e. "slimy slit-eyes" and "concupiscent chows"
In 1892 a masked figure in a bizarre uniform began a 15 month crime spree, robbing people at gunpoint in and around New Plymouth. When he was finally arrested and unmasked, residents were dumbfounded to discovered the perpetrator was mild-mannered Robert Wallath - the teenage son of a local farmer and carpenter.
Wallath, it turned out, had a deep fascination for highway criminals and at trial his lawyers claimed his mind had been "polluted" by trashy novels about Dick Turpin and Ned Kelly.
But later in life, Wallath claimed his crimes had divine inspiration. So what really drove this Taranaki teenager to commit such a brazen string of robberies and thefts?
"As morning dawned we stood and watched / That devastated scene / Where but a single yesterday / Had flourished Surafeen." In the final episode of a three-part series, RNZ's Black Sheep investigates the Surafend massacre of December 1918.
Read more about the story of Surafend on the RNZ website here.
T’was a never to be forgotten night
The village was soon in flames
The wallads knocked when sighted
But protected were the dames.
Although we are fighting Anzacs
Our honour we uphold
And treat the women fairly
As did our ancestors of old.
As morning dawned we stood and watched
That devastated scene
Where but a single yesterday
Had flourished Surafeen
We turned away in silence
But feeling justified
That for our murdered comrade
We would gladly have died.
- RSA Review, August 1938
These lines are extracted from a longer poem published in RSA Review, the official magazine for New Zealand War veterans. They were credited to an unnamed New Zealand soldier who participated in the 1918 Surafend massacre.
In the final episode of our three part series RNZ's Black Sheep we look at the unanswered questions surrounding these killings, and especially the question of what motivated them.
Host William Ray speaks to military historian Terry Kinloch, author of Devils on Horses, Paul Daley, author of Beersheba and New Zealand Defence Force Historian John Crawford
Further sources:
"They went out to this village, and they went through it with the bayonet.” In the second of a three-part series, RNZ's Black Sheep investigates the Surafend massacre of December 1918.
Read more about the story of Surafend on the RNZ website here.
“They got their heads together, the New Zealand and Australians, and they went out to this village and they went through it with the bayonet.”
- Edward O'Brien, Veteran of the Anzac Mounted Division, 1988
These are the words of Edward O’Brien - a former member of the Anzac Mounted Division. His words were recorded on tape by an oral historian and now sit in the archives of the Australian War Memorial.
Edward was one of a handful of Anzac's to admit seeing the Surafend massacre first hand, but his testimony does little to explain what happened.
In the second of a three part series, RNZ's Black Sheep podcast unpicks the story of the massacre, and the events which followed it - including the Anzac's little known role in suppressing the 1919 Egyptian revolution.
William Ray speaks to military historian Terry Kinloch, author of Devils on Horses, Paul Daley, author of Beersheba and New Zealand Defence Force Historian John Crawford
Further sources:
“There was a time when I was proud of you men of the Anzac Mounted Division. I am proud of you no longer.” In the first of a three-part series, RNZ's Black Sheep investigates the Surafend massacre.
Read more about the story of Surafend on the RNZ website here.
“There was a time when I was proud of you men of the Anzac Mounted Division. I am proud of you no longer. Today, I think you are nothing but a lot of cowards and murderers.”
- General Edmund Allenby, reported speech to Anzac Mounted Division, 16 December 1918
These words are attributed to General Edmund Allenby, the British Commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. He was speaking to the Anzac Mounted Division in the aftermath of the Surafend massacre, where an estimated 200 members of the Division killed upwards of 40 male Arab civilians in a small village in southern Palestine in December 1918.
More than a hundred years later, much of the story of the massacre remains a mystery. Basic facts around the numbers killed, the identity of the killers, and their exact motivation are unknown.
In the first of a three part series, William Ray speaks with military historian Terry Kinloch, author of Devils on Horses, to unpick the story of the Anzac mounted Division's campaign through Sinai and Palestine, and how it might help explain the massacre.
Further sources:
Black Sheep Season 8 is just around the corner with a whole new cast of controversial, villainous, or simply misunderstood figures from New Zealand history.
The last of the so-called 'lunatic asylums' closed only 20 years ago. They were founded on ideas of paternalism and social progress and survived on the basis they offered safety. In this special crossover with the Nellie's Baby Podcast, William Ray and Kirsty Johnston look into their origins.
From the 1840s onward, Frederick Maning would become an increasingly bitter and angry man who demonised Māori who opposed colonisation. So what explains this radical transition from a romantic early Pākehā settler? RNZ's Black Sheep podcast investigates.
Frederick Maning was one of the first Europeans to settle in Aotearoa, marrying a high-ranking Ngāpuhi woman, and writing two books filled with colourful anecdotes of his time living alongside Māori. But attitude to his adopted land - and its people - twisted and turned over time, leaving a complicated legacy.
Maning was there for key moments in the early years of cross-cultural contact. He witnessed the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi at Māngungu, and allegedly counselled Māori against signing it; he took up arms in the Northern War (including the infamous Battle of Ōhaeawai); and was one of the first judges on the Native Land Court.
But while his books painted a romantic picture of his early life among Māori, Maning's private letters from later in life described Tangata Whenua using racist language, and advocated extreme violence against those who resisted colonisation.
In this two part episode of Black Sheep, we look at these two lives of Judge Frederick Maning.
For further reading:
Frederick Maning was one of the first Europeans to settle in Aotearoa, he married a high-ranking Ngāpuhi woman, and wrote two books filled with romantic anecdotes of his time living alongside Māori. So why did so many of his private letters express such violent, racist attitudes towards Māori? RNZ's Black Sheep podcast investigates.
Frederick Maning was one of the first Europeans to settle in Aotearoa, marrying a high-ranking Ngāpuhi woman, and writing two books filled with colourful anecdotes of his time living alongside Māori. But attitude to his adopted land - and its people - twisted and turned over time, leaving a complicated legacy.
Maning was there for key moments in the early years of cross-cultural contact. He witnessed the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi at Māngungu, and allegedly counselled Māori against signing it; he took up arms in the Northern War (including the infamous Battle of Ōhaeawai); and was one of the first judges on the Native Land Court.
But while his books painted a romantic picture of his early life among Māori, Maning's private letters from later in life described Tangata Whenua using racist language, and advocated extreme violence against those who resisted colonisation.
In this two part episode of Black Sheep, we look at these two lives of Judge Frederick Maning.
For further reading:
In the 1910s, Hjelmar Dannevill wowed high society with gripping tales of adventure as a medical researcher and journalist. But suspicions over her fantastical stories and insistence on wearing men's clothing saw her locked up as a German spy during WWI. RNZ's Black Sheep podcast investigates the mystery of "Dr Dannevill".
Content Warning: This podcast includes discussion of suicide and self-harm
In the 1910s, Hjelmar Dannevill wowed Wellington high society with gripping tales of adventure as a medical researcher and journalist. But suspicions over her fantastical stories and insistence on wearing men's clothing saw her locked up as a German spy during WWI.
So, how much of Dannevill's story was for real? And why did she insist on dressing the way she did?
RNZ's Black Sheep podcast speaks to historian and author Julie Glamuzina about the mystery of "Dr" Hjelmar Dannevill, and what it shows about attitudes to gender in early 20th century New Zealand.
For further reading:
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In 1935, a series of extraordinary newspaper articles claimed a backyard inventor called Victor Penny was trying to build a Death Ray for the New Zealand government. The claims seem absurd... So why were they taken so seriously?
Dr Alfred Newman may be the most notorious scientific racist in New Zealand history. His 1882 paper "A study of the causes leading to the extinction of the Māori" was so extreme that it scandalised not just Māori, but also New Zealand's wider scientific community. So what can Newman's story tell us about the history of scientific racism in Aotearoa?
Dr Alfred Newman may be the most notorious scientific racist in New Zealand history. His 1882 paper "A study of the causes leading to the extinction of the Maori" used such extreme and callous language that it scandalised not just Māori, but also New Zealand's wider scientific community.
Dr Newman's views didn't spring out of nowhere. He was building on a longer history of racial supremacy - bouyed in part by Charles Darwin's theories of "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest", which many 19th Century Pākehā seized as a scientific justification for preexisting ideas of racial superiority.
However these ideas of white supremacy have always been contested in Aotearoa - by Māori and also some Pākehā. Dr Newman's notorious 1882 paper saw significant criticism from New Zealand's top scientists of the time.
In this episode of Black Sheep, we investigate Dr Alfred Newman's story - and the wider story of scientific racism in Aotearoa.
For further reading:
In the second of a two-part episode on Charles Mackay Black Sheep investigates the mysteries surrounding the Whanganui Mayor's attempted murder of D'Arcy Cresswell - a former soldier who threatened to out the Mackay as homosexual if he didn't resign the mayoralty.
For more than 50 years the name of Mayor Charles Mackay was all but forbidden in Whanganui. In 1920 Mackay shot a man through the chest after he threated to expose the mayor's homosexuality. RNZ's Black Sheep podcast investigates the downfall of Charles Mackay, and how his story is being reevaluated in modern New Zealand.
For 50 years the name Charles Mackay was all but forbidden in Whanganui. The former mayor's name was chiselled off public buildings, ripped off street signs and deliberately excluded from official histories. His official portrait was taken down and destroyed.
The reason? In 1920 Charles Mackay shot and nearly killed D'Arcy Cresswell, a 24-year-old returned soldier who had been threatening to out Mackay as homosexual.
Over the last few decades people have tried to drag Mackay's story back into the spotlight. In the 1980s, LGBTQ+ activists successfully campaigned to have his name re-inscribed on the foundation stone of the Sarjeant Gallery and in 2022 historian and author Paul Diamond released a long awaited book digging into Mackay's story.
But Mackay's story still has many unanswered questions.
Was D'Arcy Cresswell acting alone when he tried to blackmail the mayor? Was he solely motivated by homophobia, or was there something more complicated going on? In this two part episode of Black Sheep, host William Ray investigates the story of the former Mayor.
We look at Mackay's upbringing, and his meteoric rise to the mayoralty, which coincided with a meteoric rise for the town of Whanganui itself.
We investigate attitudes towards homosexuality in early 20th century New Zealand, and how Charles Mackay may have understood his attraction to other men.
And, we discuss the multiple scandals leading up to the Mayors arrest, including a catastrophic concert for a member of the royal family
Further reading:
RNZ multi award-winning podcast Black Sheep returns on May 26th with a new cast of mysterious misfits, violent villains and controversial characters.
When flamboyant orchestra conductor Eric Mareo was convicted of murder for a second time, the judge raised grave concerns about the verdict with the Attorney General. So, did 1930s prejudice and sensationalist media sentence an innocent man to death?
This is the second in a two part episode on the case of Eric Mario.
On June 17th, 1936 many New Zealanders celebrated when they heard Eric Mareo had been convicted of murder for a second time. But the judge in that trial wasn't one of them.
In an unprecedented move, he wrote to the Attorney General raising grave concerns about the verdict.
So was Eric Mareo wrongfully convicted? Black Sheep investigates.
