OBITUARY

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 140, 11 December 1923, Page 8

OBITUARY

A MAORI WAR VETERAN.

<»T TILIOIUPH—PREM JISJOCIATIOH.) AUCKLAND, 10th December. The death is announced of Henry William Northcroft, ex-R.M., aged 79. He arrived in New Zealand with his father in 1851, and was educated at New Plymouth and Nelson, and at the age of 14 years joined the volunteers at the time when volunteering involved the service of a serious and dangerous character. On the. outbreak of the Taranaki War he joined the Colonial Forces, and for eighteen years was hardly out of the field. He rose to the rank of captain, and many acts of bravery were placed to his credit, for which he was recommended for the Victoria Cross, but as the distinction was not then available for colonial troops, he was subsequently awarded the New Zealand Cross. In 1877 he was appointed Resident Magistrate for Waikato, and successively held positions m various parts of the North Island. He retired from the Bench in 1509, and in 1913 was appointed Chief Justice and Resident Commissioner of the Cook Islands, returning to the Dominion two years later, owing to ill-health.