GOVERNOR HOBSON

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 296, 10 September 1937, Page 10

GOVERNOR HOBSON

Anniversary of Death

INTERESTING DOCUMENT Issued at Auckland on September 10, 1542, a Government gazette extraordinary, announcing the death of Governor Hobson and notifying the order to be observed in the official procession on September 13, is an interesting document in view of thej approaching centennial of events in which Hobson played so important a part. The document is all the more interesting in that it is probably the only New Zealand Government publication depicting a coffin as the central feature of a State announcement. The titles of the high colonial dignitaries of the time are grouped around the coffin in the order they' were to follow the remains of New Zealand’s first Governor to the place of interment, Grafton Cemetery, Auckland. The names of the dignitaries were William Swainson (Attorney-General), James Coates (sheriff), William Martin' (Chief Justice), George Cooper (Treasurer), Felton Mathew (Sur-veyor-General), Willoughby Shortland (Colonial * Secretary and chief mourner), A. D. Best ( acting-A.D.O. and captain of the 80tlr Regiment), and Edward Shortland (private secretary). In his "Captain 'William Hobson, Dr. Guy H. Scholefield gives an interesting description of the first Governor’s funeral. "The highest possible honours were paid to a man whose private and official rectitude oven his enemies admired,’’ he says. “Covered with a Union Jack, the coffin was borne by sailors of the Government brig Victoria, preceded by a firing party of the 80th Regiment. The riderless horse was led behind the coflin. . . . After the Government officials and the military walked ‘nearly all the respectable inhabitants of Auckland.’ A feature of the obsequies was the genuinely sorrowful conduct of the Maoris.” The judgment of the Maori chief who wrote to Queen Victoria is well known: “Let not the new Governor be a boy or one puffed up; let not a trouliler come among us; let him be a good man like this Governor who has just died.” DESCENDANTS OF HOBSON’S COUSIN Several Living at Auckland Dominion Special Service. Auckland, September 9. The announcement that Mr. 0. F. H. Pollock, Napier, a collateral relative of Captain William Hobson, first Governor of New Zealand, would take part in the commemoration of the ninety-fifth anniversary of his death has brought to light the fact that several other relatives of the former Governor are living at Auckland. All of them trace their descent from Alexander Baird, cousin Of Captain. Hobson, who settled in Auckland prior to the latter’s death in 1842 and established one of the first schools In the town. Mr. Baird bad high academic qualifications and won a notable reputation for scholarship among early Aucklanders. A grand-daughter, Miss Edith Barry, lives in Disraeli Street, Mount Eden. Two great-grandchildren are Miss Helen Holmes, Remuera, and Mr. Andrew Holmes, Royal Oak. Other members of their family reside at Cambridge and Wellington. Mrs. Hobson remained in Auckland for nine months after her husband’s death and sailed for England in June, 1843. Neither of her two sons left any issue to bear the family name. The eldest daughter married Sir Alexander Rendel and their son, Mr. James M. Rendel, some years ago presented to the New Zealand Government the original journal letter which Captain Hobsop wrote to his wife in Sydney while he lay ill at the Waimate mission station in 1840. The Hobson family had another connection with Auckland for a number of years, inasmuch as Mrs. Hobson, before her departure, invested some of her capital in town and suburban land, including, it is said, the site of Hobson Buildings, Shortland Street, which Is now occupied by the National Bank of New Zealand. Her Interests remained for a long time in the charge of Dr. Edward Shortland, who had been her husband’s official secretary, and it is believed that she continued to hold properties until her death in 1876.