PIONEER COUPLE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 107, 8 May 1931, Page 13

PIONEER COUPLE

86 LIVING DESCENDANTS

Experiences in the early days of colonisation in. New Zealand wore retold at the celebration o£ the COth year of the' marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Cleaver, of Normanby. The event was observed at Normanby and was attended by a large.number of the 86 living descendants of the couple (states tho "Now Zealand Herald").

Many of Mr. and_ Mrs. Cleaver's children and grandchildren, live in the Auckland Province. At the celebrations four from Auckland were present, 11 from Whakatane, five from the Waikato district, eight from To Kuiti, and five from liuawai. Sons and daughters present included Mr. Will Cleaver, of Auckland, Mrs. J. Marx, of Cambridge, Mr. J; Cleaver and Mrs. H. Free, of Wh'akatane, Mrs. Meier, of Kuawai, and Mi. 11. Cleaver, of To Kuiti.

■Mr. Charles Cleaver was born in Warwickshire in 1850, and at the age of three months he left London for Lyttelton on the Cressy, one of the first four emigrant ships to reach Canterbury. He was married at Woodend Church, near Christehurch, in .1871. For the next 27 years Mr. Cleaver farmed about 500 acres of land in Canterbury, and about 33 years ago the family went fo Taranaki. Transport was dinicult in those times, and the absence of facilities proved a handicap to the pioneering of the dairy industry which was afterwards to make Taranaki famous. Mr. Cleaver was engaged in the early days of the industry, but about sixteen years ago he took up residence at Normanby. Mrs. Cleaver left Cambridgeshire for New Zealand by the Strathelen when she was five years of age. At the celebrations at Normanby, Mr. W. Murfltt, of ChrisCchurch, brother ana sister of Mrs. Cleaver, were the only guests at tho original wedding who were presont. The sons wero well known in sport in several provinces. Mr. Will Cleaver owned tho racehorsos White Ranger, Mulga Bill, and Jiu Jitsu.