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Sir Keith Sinclair | |
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| Born | (1922-12-05)5 December 1922 Auckland, New Zealand |
| Died | 20 June 1993(1993-06-20) (aged 70) |
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| Political party | Labour |
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| Doctoral students | Claudia Orange,Russell Stone |
Sir Keith SinclairCBE (5 December 1922 – 20 June 1993) was a New Zealand poet and historian.
Sinclair was the oldest child of Ernest Duncan Sinclair and Florence Pyrenes Kennedy.[1] Born and raised inAuckland, Sinclair was a student atAuckland University College, which was then part of theUniversity of New Zealand. He was awarded a master's degree in 1946[2] andPhD at the college and was made aprofessor of history at theUniversity of Auckland in 1963.[3][4]
In 1966, Sinclair and fellow lecturerBob Chapman establishedThe University of Auckland Art Collection, beginning with the purchase of several paintings and drawings byColin McCahon. The Collection is now managed by the Centre for Art Research, based at theGus Fisher Gallery.
Sinclair won widespread acclaim for his first book of history,The Origins of theMaori Wars (1957). His next book,A History of New Zealand (1959), is often regarded as a classic inNew Zealand history. The book remains in print, being revised several times, the last, with additions by fellow academicRaewyn Dalziel, in 2000. In 1967 he founded theNew Zealand Journal of History.
In both his poetry and his work as a historian, Sinclair was anationalist, in the sense that he was concerned with forging anational identity for New Zealand that was independent of itscolonial origins.[3]
In the1969 general election he was theLabour Party candidate forEden. He won the electorate on the night, but was defeated 3 weeks later on the final count (including special votes) by only 67 votes.[5]<[6] Later he wrote an acclaimed biography of Labour Prime MinisterWalter Nash who had left his vast personal archives at Sinclair's disposal. The book won the 1977 National Book Award.[3]
In the1983 Queen's Birthday Honours, Sinclair was appointed aCommander of the Order of the British Empire, for services to literature.[7] Two years later, he was made aKnight Bachelor, for services to historical research and literature, in the1985 Queen's Birthday Honours.[8] He then taught history at the University of Auckland until his retirement in 1987.Halfway Round the Harbour, anautobiography, was publishedposthumously in 1993.
In 2003, the University of Auckland established the Keith Sinclair Chair in History in his honour. In 2005, he was named one ofNew Zealand's Top 100 History Makers.
One of his sons is the actorHarry Sinclair; another,Stephen, is a New Zealand playwright and poet.
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