Mr C. Morgan Williams 90 Today

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31659, 20 April 1968, Page 12

Mr C. Morgan Williams 90 Today

Mr C. Morgan Williams, who is 90 today, is the oldest former Mayor of Kaiapoi and represented the Kaiapoi electorate as Labour member of Parliament from 1935 to 1946, when the electorate was absorbed into St Albans and Hurunui. Mr Williams was born at Newtown, Wales, and was educated at the Woodbridge Grammar School. After working as a post office sorter in London he came to New Zealand in 1902 and worked a- a farm labourer until 1906. He then bought eight acres of peat land at Ohapuku, in North Canterbury, and developed an extensive drainage system to allow dairy farming. In 1907, he married Miss Catherine Breeze and in 1925 the property of Waverley, near Kaiapoi, was bought in his wife's name. Mr Williams founded a herd of pedigree Ayrshires. Mr Williams's local body activities began with his election to the Kaiapoi Borough Council in 1927 and he remained a council member until he entered Parliament. He was elected Mayor of Kaiapoi in 1948 and served for a term. His eldest son was also a borough councillor for several terms and was Mayor from 1957 to 1959. Mt Williams's grain and produce business of C. Morgan Williams and Son, Ltd,

bought the Kaiapoi premises of the Kaiapoi Shipping and Trading Company after it was wound up in 1928. He is a former director of the Canterbury Central Co-operative Dairy Company, a former member of the Eyre County Council and was the first secretary of the Kaiapoi Farmers’ Union in 1906. Former Floods Mr Williams yesterday recalled that the old south branch of the Waimakariri IRiver, now the Kaikanui Stream, carried a volume of

water and “drowned” his crop of potatoes behind the site of the freezin” works. “One of the greatest successes of the Waimakariri River Trust was the 1923 diversion of the Eyre River. It has never let them down yet,” he said. “Kaiapoi used to be flooded by the Waimakariri Eyre, and Cust Rivers and drainage off the plains down the Ohoka Creek. The North Canterbury Catchment Board is doing a very good job for the low-lying areas. I think the new work will cope with any flood such as has occurred since the first settlement. We can put crops in now without worrying about being washed out to sea.” Mr Williams has been closely associated with afforestation at Kaiapoi for about 50 years, and he considers he has changed the landscape with his block plantings on the council reserves and at Ohoka, Clarkville and Mandeville. In 1939 he was appointed by the Kaiapoi Borough Council as honorary supervisor of forests. At a public meeting held in the council chambers in 1955, Mr Williams received a presentation from the Mayor (Mr N. E. Kirk) lin recognition of his service to the borough and his care of 245 acres of forest re- ; serves, and next year he was congratulated on the-award of i the M.B.E. in the Queen’s : birthday honours.