HAUHAU SCARE RECALLED.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 275, 21 November 1927, Page 8

HAUHAU SCARE RECALLED.

WELLINGTON CITY LIBRARIAN

MR. H. BAILLIE RETIRING,

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, this day.

During the Hauhau scare in the Wairarapa in 1863, Rome of the local natives were anxious for the safety of their white friends, and made various overtures to the latter with a view to securing safety of the whites from the expected raiders. Particularly were the Maoris at Tauherenikau interested in the safeguarding of a little baby boy, whose light-coloured hair and fair skin had appealed to them, European babies being then none too common in the Wairarapa backblocks. So they made plans to spirit the child away in case of imminent danger arising. But the Hauhau affair never came to that, and the plans never matured.

That little light-haired boy was Herbert Baillie, the chief public librarian of Wellington City, whose head to-day is once more silvering, but from another cause. Mr. Baillie is retiring from his post at the age of 63. He wad appointed librarian at Newtown in 1901, and in 1904 he succeeded Mr. T. W. Rowe as chief librarian.

Mr. Baillie is an authority on old Wellington, and it is suggested that his services should be secured to write a municipal history.