David Mauger

Mauger's parents were Clarence Charles Mauger and Jessie Bannerman Mauger (née Mackenzie).^[1][2] His father was a member of the 1914–1917 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, serving as shipwright on the Aurora, and later had a peak, Mauger Nunatak, in the Ross Dependency named in his honour.^[3][4]

Mauger was educated at Arthur Street School in Dunedin,^[5] and Otago Boys' High School, where he played in the school's 1st XV rugby union team.^[6] He later played for the Otago University rugby team while a student at the University of Otago.^[7]

As a youth, Mauger was a promising swimmer as a member of the Dunedin Amateur Swimming Club,^[8] where he was coached by Bernard "Punch" Tremaine.^[9] In 1949, he won the De Crewe Challenge Cup as the club's under-12 25-yards breaststroke champion.^[8] In June 1951, he set a New Zealand under-14 boys' record for the 100-yards breastroke, with a time of 1:21.8, breaking the previous record by 0.6 seconds.^[10]

Mauger studied medicine at the University of Otago, graduating Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery, in 1963.^[11] He later worked at Princess Mary Children's Hospital and Starship Hospital in Auckland.^[12][13] He became the first paediatric oncologist in New Zealand, and performed New Zealand's first paediatric bone marrow transplant.^[14]

Mauger was a founding member of the Child Cancer Foundation in 1978,^[12] and in 1999 he was made a life member.^[15] In the 2002 Queen's Birthday and Golden Jubilee Honours, he was appointed a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to paediatrics.^[16] Following the reintroduction of titular honours by the New Zealand government in 2009, he accepted redesignation as a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.^[17]