Leslie Purvis
Olive Leslie Purvis (née Black) was a New Zealand netball player born on 14 August 1927 in Greymouth. She played as goal defence for the New Zealand national team and earned one Test cap in 1948 against Australia.
She grew up in Te Araroa and Gisborne, where her father was a headmaster and she was a senior tennis champion at Gisborne High School. Purvis studied geography at Canterbury University College, earning a BA and an MA with second-class honours. She was active in netball at university and beyond, captaining both the Canterbury University and New Zealand Universities sides in 1947 and 1948, and helping Canterbury win the national championships in 1947. In 1948 she played in the second Test against Australia in New Plymouth; New Zealand lost 44–13, but Purvis was praised for strong defence. That match was her only international appearance, as New Zealand did not play another international match until 1960.
She married Dr. George Stewart Purvis, a long-serving general practitioner in Papakura, and together they had five children. Leslie Purvis died in Cambridge on 13 June 2015, aged 87, six months after her husband’s death in December 2014.
This page was last edited on 1 February 2026, at 23:34 (CET).