VIVID MEMORIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 203, 29 August 1939, Page 13

VIVID MEMORIES.

EARLY AUCKLAND.

WOMAN AGED 88 YEARS

Vivid memories of early Auckland and of the Great South Road are retained by Mrs. Charles Wootten,. who yesterday celebrated her eighty-eighth birthday at the residence of her daughter, Mrs. A. V. Bilkey, Favona Road, Mangere. Mrs. Wootten, who is a cousin of the famous statesman. Sir Robert Peel, still enjoys good health and follows current events by reading the newspaper daily without the aid of glasses.

The only surviving daughter of the | late Mr. Henry Charles Anderton and Mrs. Anderton, of Preston, England, Mrs. Wootten was born in 1851 at Bamber Bridge, Lancashire. She has been a resident of New Zealand for 70 years. She left England with her mother and sisters in the sailing ship Royal Dane in 1868, and arrived at Auckland after a voyage of five months. In the Dominion she joined her brothers, who had already emigrated. In 1872, at Bombay, she was married to Mr. Charles Wootten, formerly of Devizes., Wiltshire, who came to New Zealand in the sailing ship Bombay in 1865. Mr. Wootten was one of the first settlers of Bombay and was also for a time at Mercer, where, as an officer of the Government he was required to keep order among the Maoris. Later he returned to Bombay and after living for almost 50 years there, he died. Mrs. Wootten came to Auckland 22 years ago to live with her daughter at Mangere.