A Gathering of Old Pensioners.

Hastings Standard, Issue 438, 29 September 1897, Page 4

A Gathering of Old Pensioners.

The Auckland correspondent of the Otago Daily Times says that the founder:-- of Howiek are just now arranging for a meeting of ali those remaining out of the two hundred and forty pensioners who arrived in the colony about November, 1817, by the ships Minerva, Sir Robirt Sale, and Sir George Seymour, with LieutenantGeneral Pitt commanding and Major Greenwood, A.D.C. Mr j. W. White, who is the prime mover in organising the celebration, has compiled a pretty accurate muster roll, and finds that out of three companies—each eighty strong—about one-third still survived the half century of up and downs of colonial life, a roll of eighty living in various parts of the country having been verified, with a large number of sons, daughters, and grand-children, &c. The companies were under Major Gray, Captains Smith and Macdonald, none of whom are now alive. The men were of a certain age, limited to between forty and forty-five years, all being old soldiers of the Impeiial Army, who had been pensioned for services in the wars of the Mother Country, many carrying their honorable scars. One named John Smith had no less than six gunshot wounds in a line across the breast like a row of medals—grim ones, indeed—which he received in the Sikh wars. One of these old warriors, now nearly ninety, by name J. Heath, attends divine service as regularly as the parson in the little old church at Ho wick, and can describe the siege of Acre as if it occurred yesterday. Another of the founders is the senior occupant of Greenwich Hospital, England, aged ninenty-seven. The ships named left Tilbury for the Thames on July 1, 1847, and on that to them memorable day several of these old pioneers at the last moment took unto themselves wives from among the women who had come merely to give them a good send-off, but who at this juncture hastily resolved to cast in their lots with them, and now at this day tell the tale with a winning nair.-t?. The idea is to gather together, on a day to be heareafter fixed, on the ground of hallowed Howick, and compare notes and renew their friendship and old associations.