Helen Leach

Helen May Leach (née Keedwell; 3 July 1945 – 23 January 2026) was a New Zealand academic who specialised in food anthropology. She conducted research for more than 50 years into the history of New Zealand, the archaeology and anthropology of Oceanic culture, and the social history and anthropology of culinary and horticultural practices, and wrote at least 22 books on these subjects. She was a professor emerita at the University of Otago.

Early life and education Born Helen May Keedwell in Wellington on 3 July 1945, Leach was the daughter of Peggy and Harvey Keedwell. Her sisters were cookbook author Mary (later Browne) and watercolour artist Nancy (later Tichborne). After joining the Otago Anthropological Society as a teenager

Originally trained in archaeology, she completed a PhD in 1976 at Otago, with a thesis titled Horticulture in prehistoric New Zealand: an investigation of the function of the stone walls of Palliser Bay, with Charles Higham as her doctoral advisor. In the 1960's she was the first woman at the University of Otago to gain a Masters degree in anthropology, and also the first woman to obtain a PhD in anthropology.

Career Leach joined the staff of the University of Otago in 1972, and was appointed to a chair in anthropology in 2002.

Leach was renowned for her research into the origins of pavlova and Christmas cakes, writing several cook books touching the topic. She also had an interest in prehistoric horticulture, human domestication, the evolution of the human diet, and the history of cooking and kitchens. She used this to study the role of kitchen gardening in New Zealand, leading her to write her next book 1,000 Years of Gardening in New Zealand (1984) and inspiring her next books that she wrote in the following years. to the history of cooking, the origins of recipes as well as the development of kitchens and batteries de cuisine in the twentieth century. Her extensive collection of over 2,000 cookery books, especially community cookbooks, provided a significant resource for colleagues' investigations, which compensated for the incompleteness of that in the National Library of New Zealand.

Sisters Helen, Mary and Nancy worked together on a number of co-authored books about cooking and gardening, and breadmaking, the best known of which was probably The Cook's Garden: for cooks who garden and gardeners who cook (1980). Leach's book 1,000 Years of Gardening in New Zealand (1984), an anthropological history of gardening practices in New Zealand, was also illustrated by Tichborne.

Honours Leach was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2004. When Leach retired from the University of Otago in 2008, she received a Garden History Award from the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture for contributions to horticultural history and conservation, She is remembered through her many contributions to academia and horticultural discoveries.