Hugh McBain was born in Newcastle on Tyne in the north of England and is a descendant of both Henry and William Williams. After leaving school, he attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was commissioned into the Durham Light Infantry as a second lieutenant in 1965. He served in the Durham Light Infantry and the Light Infantry in the UK, Cyprus and Northern Ireland. In 1970 he immigrated to New Zealand and worked as a shepherd at Totara Hills Station in the Hawke's Bay before attending Lincoln College and obtaining a Diploma of Agriculture. He married Victoria (Vickie) Thrupp in 1974 and they had four children, Simon, Richard, Caroline (Pixie) and Miles. Hugh managed the family farm, Kahotea, at Te Aute from 1974 to 2014. Following Vickie's death in 2008, he married Di Martin in 2011, and they now live in Havelock North.
Hugh has had a close and long involvement with the Anglican Church, and has served as a trustee of the Henry and William Williams Memorial Trust for fifty years. The trust supports the mission of the Anglican Church to Māori and to other Indigenous people around the world. He is the author of The Plough, the Chalice and the Sword: Stories of the Williams Family in New Zealand (2022).
Patrick Parsons was Hawke's Bay born and bred and identified strongly with the province. He specialised in Māori history and genealogy and made the transition from secondary school teacher to historian in 1991, researching Waitangi Tribunal claims. He was extensively consulted by iwi, hapu and councils and regarded as an authority on historical events involving Māori. His interests expanded to include the colonial history of Hawke's Bay. In 1997 he published In the Shadow of Te Waka, a history of the Te Pohue district. He is the author of Waipukurau: The History of a Country Town (1999) and contributed to many other local history books.
Stella August lives at Kairakau on her ancestral land. She belongs to the hapu Ngāi Te Oatua, Ngāi Tamatera and Ngāti Hikatoa and is involved with the Kairakau Lands Trust, an Ahu Whenua Trust that administers whenua Māori on behalf of their beneficial owners. She has a strong connection to the land and sea. She has both a Master of Science and a Master of Archaeological Practice as well as the practical skills that come from growing up on a farm. She was happy to be involved in this book as this part of the coastline, south of Waimarama to Porangahau, has a long and interesting Māori history, the remains of which are still evident on much of the landscape.
