Early memories of Wolfson: Nanaia Mahuta

Sir Tim Hitchens recently hosted Nanaia Mahuta, former New Zealand Foreign Minister and first Māori Foreign Minister, in Oxford. Nanaia is the daughter of Sir Robert Mahuta – the first Māori graduate student at Oxford – and as a child she lived in Wolfson family accommodation with her parents.

The family lived in Wolfson in 1976 and 1977; Sir Robert Mahuta stayed here for two years, eventually leaving due to opening opportunities in New Zealand.

During her recent visit to Wolfson with her husband, Nanaia recalled living in family accommodation in College; spending time on the lawns, the communal family life, and that the children all used to have meals in the Haldane Room, with the adults having reserved use of the Hall. She remembers the international variety of the families who lived with them in the family accommodation – something that of course, will resonate with anyone who has lived in those areas since. Nanaia, her brother and sister and parents, regularly took punts out and went upstream to the Victoria Arms.

Nanaia remembers her father talking of his affection for Wolfson; particularly the evenings that began with talks for the community, then dinner, then everyone assembling in the bar to carry on the conversations. He might have felt some comparability with the Centre of Māori Studies research at the University of Waikato, New Zealand of which he was a founding director in 1972.

Nanaia’s hope is that at some point, it may prove possible to establish a link between her father’s college and Wolfson, with exceptional students coming to Oxford and basing themselves at Wolfson – a visiting scholar programme – and potentially Oxford postdocs spending a year in New Zealand.