N.Z. VISIT BY MR SANDYS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27125, 22 August 1953, Page 9

N.Z. VISIT BY MR SANDYS

FORMER ESTATE TO BE INSPECTED (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, August 20. A visit to the Springfield estate, near Methven, in Mid-Canterbury, to see the grave of his grandfather, Mr Duncan Cameron, is planned by Mr Duncan Sandys, Britain’s Minister of Supply, during his stay of about 10 days in New Zealand in September. Mr Sandys, who will leave London by air for Malaya and Australia on August 24, has taken the greatest interest in New Zealand all his life. As a child he learned much about it from his mother, who was formerly Miss Mildred Cameron. She met Captain George Sandys during a visit to England and they subsequently married in New Zealand. Their son Duncan was born in England and was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford.

Though he has never been to the Dominion, his mother, who died last year, gave him a wide knowledge of the country, and Mr Sandys has always declared he is proud to be “half a New Zealander.”

When he was a boy, his mother used to tell him stories of how his grandfather sailed to New Zealand during the 1860’s and became a sheepfarmer. He will visit his grandfather’s grave on September 21. During the early part of the war, Mr Sandys, who is Sir Winston Churchill’s son-in-law, served with the British Army in Norway, and in 1943, he was appointed chairman of the War Cabinet Committee for Defence against German V weapons. He has maintained his interest in these weapons and, as Minister of Supply, will be visiting the Woomera rocket range. He expects to spend about a fortnight in Australia before flying to New Zealand, where, it is expected, he will arrive about mid-September to confer with the Prime Minister (Mr Holland) and Cabinet on defence matters generally. He will not be accompanied by Mrs Sandys. Well over 6ft and with auburn hair, Mr Sandys, who has established a reputation in the House of Commons by his handling of the legislation for denationalising the iron and steel industry, was nearly killed in an aircraft during the early 1930’5. He was piloting an aeroplane in which he crashed, and was unconscious for eight hours afterwards. Born in Inverness-shire, Scotland, Mr Duncan Cameron, Mr Sandys’s grandfather, came to New Zealand in the Mirage in 1864. He was a member of the Lochiel branch of the Cameron clan.

When he arrived in Canterbury he managed the Winchmore sheep run for five years for Mr Robert Parke. Tn 1869 ne and Mr George Gould bought the Springfield estate, which became one of the best known farms in the country. Mr Cameron farmed it on a large scale, even chartering ships to export wheat and wool.

After his death the Springfield estate was cut up. Lying between Ashburton and Methven on the main road, the homestead is now owned by Mr A. W. Taylor, a Christchurch coal merchant, who acquired it from the Ruddenklau family a few years ago. Before that it was owned by a Mr Dowling. The large-scale farming on the old Springfield estate is indicated by the fact that farms were formed from individual paddocks when it was cut up. One paddock, for example, was The old homestead is still in use. It contains 28 rooms.