SUMNER PIONEERS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25538, 5 July 1948, Page 2

SUMNER PIONEERS

DIAMOND WEDDING TO-DAY

To-day Mr and Mrs J. S. Williamson (Sumner) will celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of their wedding at the home of their son and daughter-in-law, Mr and Mrs J. Williamson, Bury street, Sumner. They were married at Woolston on July 5, 1888, and both are now aged 85 years. Mr Williamson was born in a house on the banks of the Heathcote river, near the “humbug”—the elbow-like turn in the river between the Heathcote bridge and the old steam wharf, which had been so named by old mariners because of the twists and turns they had to make to reach the steam crane on the wharf to unload their merchandise. Mr Williamson’s father, Captain Robert Williamson, took supplies by water from Lyttelton to tne old steam wharf for many years before the tunnel was built. Mr Williamson inherited his father’s love pf the sea and 30 years ago was a member of the Sumner life saving crew when the lifeboat was the original Rescue. He recalls that in those days the boat was launched from the jetty near the pier, and the crew was summoned by blasts from a horn, like

fog horn, on the top of Cave Rock. Mr Williamson is a life member of the Sumner Rifle Club, and in his younger days Won many trophies for rifle shooting. For the greater part of his 60 years’ residence at Sumner he has been engaged in market gardening on land near the School for the Deaf. He is still remarkably active and can read a newspaper without glasses. Before her marriage, Mrs Williamson was Miss Gertrude Ophelia Town-son-Mead. Her. father was at one time a member of Parliament for Carlton, Victoria. Her main interests have been in her home and_her flower garden.

Mr and Mrs Williamson have one son, eight grandchildren, and 16 greatgrandchildren.