Russell Stone

Russell Cyril James Stone ONZM (born 7 April 1923)[1] is a New Zealand historian,[2] author and professor emeritus at the University of Auckland. He is the leading authority on the history of Auckland, having written nine books on early Auckland history.[3]

Born in Mount Eden in 1923,[4] Stone attended Mount Albert Grammar School

[5] and graduated from Auckland University College (now the University of Auckland) with a BA in 1945, and an MA with first-class honours in 1949.[6] After working as a secondary-school teacher, Stone was appointed to the staff of the history department at the University of Auckland in 1964,[7] and completed a PhD in history in 1969. His thesis was titled Auckland business and businessmen in the 1880s,[8] and was published in 1973 as Makers of Fortune: A Colonial Business Community and Its Fall.[9] He retired in 1989 and was granted the title of professor emeritus.[10]

The memoirs of John Logan Campbell were published in 1881. Stone republished these long out-of-print tales in his book: Poenamo: Romance and Reality of Antipodean Life in the Infancy of a New Colony. Stone had earlier written a two-volume life of Campbell,Young Logan Campbell (1982)[11]and The Father and his Gift: John Logan Campbell's Later Years (1987).[12]

In the 2002 New Year Honours, Stone was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to historical research.[13] He was the joint winner of the biennial J.M. Sherrard Award in New Zealand local and regional history in 2004, for his book From Tamaki-Makau-rau to Auckland, published in 2001.[7]