Tom Newnham

Thomas Oliver Newnham QSO (20 November 1926 – 15 December 2010) was a New Zealand political activist and educationalist.

He was involved in several left wing causes: attacking institutional racism in New Zealand, and opposing the 1981 Springbok Tour and apartheid in general (both carried out in his role as Secretary of CARE).

[1] He spoke Cantonese and Mandarin fluently after living in China and was heavily involved in helping Chinese immigrants in his later years.

He wrote the book Dr Bethune's Angel: The Life of Kathleen Hall about the New Zealand missionary nurse who worked with the Canadian physician, Dr Norman Bethune, in China in the 1930s.

[2] Newnham died on 15 December 2010 from cancer, aged 84, at Elizabeth Knox Hospital, Epsom.

1981 protest against Springboks in Hamilton (New Zealand), right Tom Newnham
1989 Tom Newnham at Kathleen Hall 's village China
2000 Tom Newnham at Kathleen Hall commemoration in Baoding , China