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Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 99, 7 February 1936, Page 6

MR EDWIN BEZAR.

WELLINGTON, February 6. The death has occurred of Edwin Bezar, ex-sergeant major of the bnu West Middlesex Regiment, known as the Diehards. He was 97 years of age. The Diehards took an active part in suppressing that section of'the Maori rebellion which kept the settlers of Taranaki province in a, fever of unrest in the early sixties. Sergeant-Major Bezar served in the Crimea with the Wiltshire Regiment. He was transferred to the Diehards in 1557 and served at Aden during the Indian Mutiny and later in 1860 went to India, whence the regiment was dispatches in the same year to New Zealand. In 1866 the 57th Regiment was recalled to England, and he took his discharge in the colony as a coloursergeant. When in 1866 the Maoris again threatened trouble on the West Coast of the North Island lie was appointed sergeant-major in the Wanganui district. He remained with, the Defence Department till 1892, when ho retired and lived in Wellington ever since.