OLDEST WOMAN IN BRITAIN

Hawera Star, Volume L, 7 February 1931, Page 16

OLDEST WOMAN IN BRITAIN

RKA(• H K S 1! :St 11 BfR T H DAY. TIN DEE BOX MEMORIES. Believed to be the oldest woman in England, Mrs. Peary, of Alnwick, celehratod her lOS t h birthday on Deeemlier 10. She Ims the extraordinary re ord of having lived in the time of seven Dukes of Northumberland, and she and her husband were employed by some of them. As a girl she worked in Hulne Park—the Duke’s home farm

and pleasure grounds. She was then :J0 years old. I ! “We came home as large as life with •our 4d wages at the end of each day,' said Mrs. .Peary. “That is nearly a hundred years since, when money | bought much more than it dees now.’ Mrs. Peary was born in the old manor of On non gate, one of the oldest and most picturesque suburbs of Almvi k, which has been wholly reconstrmtod into a charming quarter of Alnwick by successive dukes. Until three years ago Mrs. Peary did knitting and hearthrug making, and exhibited at Alnwick Show. Mrs. Peary spoke of the time when I her family made their own candles, I and lit their fires with flint and steel out of the tinder box.

• | She re. ailed the cholera epidemic in , Alnwick in 1830, when the dead were i.die. ted and taken by the cart-load for 1 burial in Alnwick Parish Churchyard. Hue i emembered in more recent years 1 a local man who made his own coffin ' and used it as a table until he died. Mrs. Peary had lour sisters and '.three brothers, all of whom attained '. e> traordinary ages. Her sisters, Mrs. • Bissett and Mrs. Sprntt, who were twins, reached 953 and 83 years respec- • lively, and the youngest sister died bordering on 80 years. All three | brothers were considerably past )(1 when I they died. I Mrs. Peary had no family of her own j but she had two neices, three nephews, I three great-nieces, one great-great- | niece and throe gre;it-'” - '':>t-nepliows. Mrs. Peary’s husband died 54 years ago ;