NEW ZEALAND PIONEER

Evening Star, Issue 19519, 29 March 1927, Page 9

NEW ZEALAND PIONEER

DEATH IN ENGLAND. Barnstaple has lost one of its most interesting characters by the death of Mr Thomas Youatt Pine, which took place at the age of eighty-three years (says the local paper). Mr Pino was born at Honiton in 18*13, and worked for some years in Exeter. Being of an adventurous disposition, however, he sailed to New Zealand, being among the second batch of pioneers to sail to that country. The voyage took nine months and two weeks to accomplish. For some time Mr Pine served in the mounted police, having several adventures among the Maoris, and was at one time involved in an earthquake. Later he went from New Zealand to Australia, and spent several years there, eventually returning to Barnstaple, where ho set up in business. His homo was a veritable museum, containing a life’s collection of articles seenr-d from different parts of the wort 1 It was the writer’s privilege recent !v to see some of the treasures the* Em deceased had accumulated, and nf which he was intensely proud. Tlte collection contained an excellent preserved specimen of the duck-billed Platypus. Among the host of other interesting things that caught one’s eye were two eases of beautiful foreign birds and butterflies, including several humming birds, and the very rare “parson bird” ( tni'i, a cobra and a whip snake, a flying fox, an iguana, a saw fish, an opossum, eases containing beautiful specimens of white coral, two sea horses, a flying fish, and a host of sea shells of varying size and hues, and-a number of curious relics of a like nature. The writer also, saw some splendid ■ specimens of crystal formaand a stone with the fossilised imprint in miniature of a number of trees, said to have been imprinted by. the sun. I Mr Pine took an interest in lustres and_ bronzes, having a wonderful collection _of each. He had a number of old prints. He also possessed some beautiful tnnestry work.. One case of which Mr Pine was especially proud contained _the buttons and badges of two his nenhows who came over from New Zealand during the Great War to fight for the Empire. Mr Pine often recalled the hardships and exciting incidents that beset the early settlers in Britain beyond the seas, and compared in graphic fashion the wonderful change that the onward march of progress had brought about in tho modes of travel, etc.