Sir Theodore Rigg 1888–1972
Today is the birthday of Sir Theodore Rigg, director of the Cawthron Institute for 23 years, from 1933-56. He was a very interesting man indeed. Instead of providing the link to his biography on the Te Ara website, I’ve reproduced the whole thing here. No problem with copyright, because I wrote it.
I was especially interested in his life before his arrival at Cawthron. During the First World War Rigg, a Quaker, became heavily involved in humanitarian work. Immediately after the war he found himself in Russia running orphanages. Remember, this was during a civil war, the Revolution. He was reputedly sufficiently highly regarded by both the Reds and the Whites that he was able to travel more or less freely on either side of the battle lines. Anyway, here is the brief bio: