RELATIVES OF FIRST GOVERNOR

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22194, 10 September 1937, Page 12

RELATIVES OF FIRST GOVERNOR

Several Resident In Auckland ASSOCIATION WITH EARLY LIFE OF CITY (THE PRESS Special Service. I AUCKLAND, September 9. The announcement that Mr C. F. H. Pollock, of Napier, a collateral relation of Captain William Hobson, the first Governor of New Zealand, would take part in the commemoration of the ninety-fifth anniversary of his death, has brought to light the fact that several other relatives of the former Governor are living in Auckland. All of them trace their descent from Mr Alexander Baird, a cousin of Captain Hobson, who settled in Auckland before the latter’s death in 1842, and established one of the first schools in the town. Mr Baird had high academic qualifications, and won a notable reputation for scholarship among early Aucklanders. A grand-daughter, Miss Edith Barry, lives in Disraeli street, Mount Eden, and two great-grand-children are Miss Helen Holmes, of Remuera, and Mr Andrew Holmes, of Royal Oak. Other members of their family reside at Cambridge and Wellington. Mrs Hobson remained in Auckland for nine months after her husband’s death, and sailed for England in June, 1843. Neither of her two sons left any issue to bear the family name. Her eldest daughter married Sir Alexander Rendel, and their son, Mr James M. Rendel, some years ago presented to the New Zealand Government the original journal letter which Captain Hobson wrote to his wife in Sydney while he lay ill at the Waimate Mission Station in 1840. The Hobson family had another connexion with Auckland for a number of years, as Mrs Hobson, before her departure, invested some of her capital in town and suburban land, including, it is said, the site of Hobson Buildings, Shortland street, which is now occupied by the National Bank of New Zealand. Her interests remained for a long time in the charge of Dr. Edward Shortland, who had been her husband’s official secretary, and it is believed that she continued to hold the properties until her death in 1876.

After sitting for nine weeks the cock emu at Newtown Zoo yesterday morning hatched out two black and white striped chicks each about the size of a bantam hen. The emu is still sitting on the remaining nine eggs, and it is probable that more young ones will emerge to-morrow. —“The Press” Special Service.

“I doubt if the world will have anything to do with gold in its financial system in another 100 years,” said Professor B. E. Murphy, of Victoria University College, Wellington, in an address, at Hastings, on banking and currency. He contended that it was time for the people to “rub the dust from their eyes” when thinking of gold as a currency and be rid of what he termed a “gold complex.” Professor Murphy agreed that gold was a very good industrial metal indeed, and all the gold that was hoarded up in sealed boxes and transferred from one country to another when the markets were uneasy, or was buried in vaults away under ground, would be put to better use in the manufacture of articles. “As a monetary standard,” he declared, “gold has outlived its usefulness, and a useless thing.”