Oliver Duff

Oliver Duff (28 May 1883 – 2 March 1967) was a New Zealand writer and editor. In 1939 he was founding editor of the New Zealand Listener, a widely read magazine with a national monopoly on publishing radio and television programs.

Biography Duff was born in Waitahuna Gully, a gold mining town in Otago. He received his tertiary education at Otago and Canterbury Universities.

In 1938, Joe Heenan, under-secretary of internal affairs, appointed him editor for the forthcoming centennial publications. His contribution was New Zealand Now.

On 12 October 1908, at Dunedin, he married Jessie Barclay. They had three sons and a daughter, but divorced in 1937. As Jess Whitworth she published an autobiographical novel, Otago Interval in 1950. Their son Roger Duff (1912–1978) became an ethnologist and director of the Canterbury Museum. Their daughter Alison Duff (1914–2000) was a sculptor. Their son Gowan Duff (Pat), a forestry scientist, was father of novelist Alan Duff.

Oliver Duff remarried in 1946, to Ngaire Asquith Shankland, shortly before his retirement.