OBITUARY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 106, 31 October 1942, Page 8

OBITUARY

MR. ANDREW LAING

The death occurred at Matamata this week of Mr. Andrew Laing, who had resided in New Zealand for over 70 years and was well known throughout the country. Mr. Laing, who was born at St. Andrews, Scotland, celebrated his ninetieth birthday a month ago. Coming to New Zealand as a young man in the ship Margaret Galbraith, he landed at Port Chalmers and made his way to the West Coast and from there to Nelson in his endeavour to make good in those pioneering days. Later, with . his brother-in-law (the late Mr. George Younger), took up bridge contracting in the North Island, and some of the work they carried out stands to this day. This ii.eludes part of the bridge over the Tongariro River at the southern entrance to Lake Taupo. Mr. Laing was also interested in farming, which he followed in Hawke's Bay, and he was afterwards well known as a hotelkeeper in that district and in Taranaki. For a time he resided in the Rangitikei district. He was married in the Presbyterian Manse in Ghuznee 3treet over 65 years ago. Latterly Mr. Laing had been living in retirement in the Matamata district. Mrs. Laing predeceased her husband by a year or so. On the occasion of their diamond wedding, celebrated in Stratford, they received congratulatory messages from the King. A sister of Mr. Laing's, who died in Scotland a year ago, had been married for 76 years, and she and her husband had also received special congratulations from the King on the occasion of the celebration of their platinum wedding.

The late Mr. Laing is survived by six daughters (Mrs. H. J. S. Rickard, Wellington. Mrs. S. Hawke, Matamata, Mrs. Newton Bird, Te Rapa, Mrs. W. J. Huston, Melbourne, Mrs. N. Sutherland, Hamilton, and Mrs. L. Little, Matamata), and one son (Mr. Duncan Laing, Waitara).