OBITUARY

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 307, 23 September 1926, Page 8

OBITUARY

DEATH OF MR. H. P. RAWSON

The funeral of Mr. H. P. Rawson, who passed away at Timaru while on a holiday in the south, will take place to-day. leaving his late residence, Seatoun, at 2 p.m. for Karori cemetery. The late Mr. Herbert Pearson Rawson was the seventh son of the late Thomas Rawson, M.D., and was a brother of the late Dr. Ernest Rawson and stepbrother of Judge Rawson. He was born in London in 1853, and came out to New Plymouth with his parents when a small boy, and had vivid recollections of the early pioneering days and the Maori War; while his eldei brothers were fighting, he, with his sister and younger brother, were sent to Nelson for safety. When a young man Mr. Rawson became a pupil of his brother, Mr. Henry Rawson, dentist, and subsequently took over his practice in Wellington. He married in 1880 Agnes Beatrice, daughter of the late William Symons, of London and Wellington. In his younger days Mr. Rawson was an enthusiastic member of the Port Nicholson Yacht Club, and in the Girola carried off numerous prizes. He was instrumental in getting the first Dental Act passed, and was the first president of the Dental Association. For some years he was chairman of the Ferry Company, and had hockey lawns, etc., laid down at Day’s Bay. He was also chairman for many years of the Seatoun Road Board, and was chairman of the Seatoun and Bays Progressive Association. Mr. Rawson was chairman of directors since the inception of the Mercantile and General Tnsuranuce Company. He was returning from Auckland on the company’s business when the train disaster took place at Ongarue three vears avo, and as a result has been in indifferent health ever since, dving of heart trouble, in his 74th vear, in Timaru, when returning from a holiday. He leaves a widow, two daughters—Mrs. Francis Davison mid Mrs. Mathew Holmes—a son, Dr. H. J. Rawson, and seven grandchildren. NTr. Rawson was a most enthusiastic gardener, and after living for some vears on Wellincrton Terrace made his permanent home at Seatoun, where his beautiful erarden is a wellknown feature of the district