Willi Fels was a New Zealand merchant, collector and philanthropist.
13 Facts About Willi Fels
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Willi Fels was the eldest of the couple's four children.
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Willi Fels had a keen interest in history and classics, but rather than going to university he became manager of the family's woollen mill near Paderborn.
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In 1881 Willi Fels was visited by his uncle, Bendix Hallenstein, and married his cousin Sara, Hallenstein's eldest daughter, in November of the same year.
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Hallenstein had become prominent in the New Zealand city of Dunedin as a merchant in the years immediately following the 1862 Otago gold rush, and in 1888 the Willi Fels moved to Dunedin to join Hallenstein's family business, Hallenstein Brothers.
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Willi Fels was an avid collector, and his journeys through the young colony on business afforded him the opportunity to collect Maori and Polynesian art and artefacts.
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Willi Fels collected ethnological art and artefacts from southern and eastern Asia, and many classical artefacts and historical literature.
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Willi Fels established the first fund for the purchasing ethnological collections at the Otago Museum, which subsequently named the Willi Fels Wing of the museum in his honour in 1930.
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In 1930, a new wing, the Willi Fels Wing, was added to the museum.
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In 1935, Willi Fels was awarded the King George V Silver Jubilee Medal.
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Willi Fels was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, for services to ethnology in New Zealand, in the 1936 New Year Honours.
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Willi Fels died at his residence in Dunedin in 1946 and his ashes were interred at the Southern Cemetery in a plot with Bendix Hallenstein.
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Willi Fels' family were prominent in the arts and culture of southern New Zealand for many years, his cousins, the De Beers, and grandson Charles Brasch making a permanent mark on the country's cultural life.