PERSONAL ITEMS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 27 January 1927, Page 9

PERSONAL ITEMS.

A Press Association message from Sydney stated that Ponsford has accepted a position as a member of the commercial staff and cricket writer on the Melbourne Herald and lias refused the offer to return to England to play for Lancashire.

A visitor to Hawera to-day was Air. F. J. Niall, of Auckland, and formerly’ a Hawera resident and business man. Mr. Niall was pleased to meet many old friends and interested to note* the wonderful progres made in and around the town since he lived here. He has been for some years manager in Auckland for V hiteombe and Tombs', Ltd., and says that business conditions in the northern city are very bright and flourishing. He left by service car'this afternoon for the South.

Many old residents of the district will learn with much regret of the death at Cardiff this morning of Mr. William Henry Allen, formerly la. wellknown settler of Norman by. Mr. Allen settled first in Normanby, about thirty years ago, and had previously been a resident of Waitana, arriving in New Zealand 49 years ago-. He Jeiaves a family of four —two-daughters, Mrs. P. Horn (Cardiff) and Mrs, J. Irwin (Te Awamutu), and two- sons, Mr. ChareAllen, of the Star Office, and Rev. J. H. Allen (Birkenhead. He was until some months ago employed by the Public 'Works Department-,, Kaipuni, when he hacl to* give' up work and succumbed to an internal trouble. A press Association message from Hastings reported the death of Mr. Robert Wellwood, aged 91. who was tlie first mayor of Hastings, in IBSS. He was born in Kilkenny, ' Ireland, and came to New Zealand in 1857, and farmed on the Heretaunga plains. Later he went to the Otago goldfields also to the West Coast, but was unsuccessful and returned to- Hawke’s Bay. He purchased the Waikoko homestead and farmed what is now the A. and P. Society’s showgrounds. Later he sold out and started auctioneering in Hastings. He was engaged in an unsuccessfully attempt to establish woollen mills, and later returned to farming. He was always deeply interested in civic and agricultural affairs and was past president of the A. and P. Society, and worshipful master of the masonic Lodge. He was twice married and leaves a widow and a grown-up family of five daughters, three sons and sixteen grandchildren.