Jean Batten

Jean Batten was born in Rotorua and was determined to fly from the age of eighteen, when she met the Australian pilot Charles Kingsford Smith. Her father, a dentist, refused to help. Her mother, who lived apart from him, sold the family piano and took her to London in 1930, where Jean learned to fly at Stag Lane, finding sponsors among admirers and borrowing more than she could pay back.

Her first attempt at flying to Australia, in 1933, ended in a sandstorm near Karachi. Her second ended in a crash-landing in Rome, with the aeroplane wrecked and her lip cut open. In May 1934, with another borrowed Gipsy Moth, she set out a third time and reached Darwin in fourteen days, beating Amy Johnson's time by more than four days.

In 1935 she flew the South Atlantic alone from West Africa to Brazil, the first woman to do so. In October 1936 she flew from England to New Zealand in eleven days, crossing the Tasman Sea alone with no radio to land at Auckland in front of six thousand people. She was probably the most famous woman in the Commonwealth.

Her flying career ended with the war. Her fiancé had been killed in a crash, then her mother, with whom she lived, died in 1966. She drifted between hotels and rented rooms in Spain, avoiding attention. In November 1982 she died in Majorca from a dog bite that became infected, and was buried in a paupers' grave. The world did not find out until 1987. Auckland's airport terminal now carries her name.