NINETY-SEVEN YEARS OLD

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22241, 4 November 1937, Page 3

NINETY-SEVEN YEARS OLD

MRS J. HAMILTON’S BIRTHDAY

MEMORIES OF EARLY CHRISTCHURCH

To-day Mrs Julia Hamilton will celebrate the ninety-seventh anniversary of her birthday. Although her eyesight is failing slowly, Mrs Hamilton hears clearly, walks unaided, and possesses a very keen intellect. To a reporter yesterday, she recalled many amusing and interesting events in her voyage from England, and in the early days of Canterbury. Mrs Hamilton was born in the village of Hamilton. Buckinghamshire. At the age of 15 she came to New Zealand on the ship Westminster with her grandfather and grandmother, Mr and Mrs Joseph Gould, and several brothers and sisters. After calling at several ports around the English coast, the ship left London on January 3, and

arrived at Lyttelton on June 8, The first port at which passengers landed was Wellington, and because of unfavourable weather, the ship had to remain there for six weeks. When it left for Lyttelton very few of the original passengers were on board. The ship had to battle against a south-westerly gale on the trip to Lyttelton and it took just over a week. “During the trip from England we did not see land for weeks on end,” said Mrs Hamilton. Concerts were held on the ship during the voyage, and Mrs Hamilton remembers men, whose names are now written in Canterbury’s pioneer history, singing and amusing their fellow-passengers. She remembers also climbing down the ship’s side on a rope ladder and being conveyed to the jetty in a lifeboat. Mrs Hamilton and several of her relatives walked over the Bridle path to Heathcote. where they were to be met by a cart. Unfortunately, she said, they had walked almost to Christchurch when the cart met them.

The family first resided in Bealey avenue and later shifted to Armagh street Mrs Hamilton has a clear recollection of the elections in the city for the seats on the Provincial Council. She also remembers seeing a plough being used for the levelling of the, Square for the foundations of the Cathedral. “The foundation stone of the Cathedral was laid years before the building was commenced,” she said. Not long after her arrival at Christchurch, Mrs Hamilton attended a church meeting at which there were six bishops, including Bishop Selwyn, Bishop Harper, and Bishop Pattison. Mrs Hamilton has lived in Christchurch for the greater part of her life. In 1888 she went to Taranaki, where her husband took a farm at Cardiff, near Stratford. On the death of her husband in 1914 she returned to Christchurch, where she has since lived with her daughter, in Fitzgerald street. She is now a great-great-grandmother. She has four sons and two daughters, 33 grandchildren. 33 great-grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildren. Until recently reading occupied much of Mrs Hamilton’s time and her sight had remained so clear that she was able to read without a pair of spectacles. Now, however, her sight is becoming weaker and she has had to give up most of her reading and needlework. She enjoys an occasional drive in a motorcar and leads a very active life for a woman of her age.