LOCAL AND PERSONAL

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 31 October 1933, Page 7

LOCAL AND PERSONAL

The death has occurred of Dr. W. Tv- Herbert, a well-known Wellington surgeon, aged 72 years, states a Wellington Press Association message.

The death of Mr Robert Henry Medland, a. well-known bowler of the Thorn don Club, is reported in a Press Association message received from Wellington this morning. He was m his ninetieth year. His- parents came to New Zealand in the ship Amelia Thompson and. landed at New Plymouth in 1841. Mr Medland was bom in 1844. As a boy he was apprenticed to the ‘ ‘Taranaki News" and the “Taranaki Herald." He went to Wellington to enter the Government printing office and retired in 1909 after 35 years of service with the office.. Mr Medland saw a good deal of the Maori wars. When only sixteen years of age he joined the Taranaki rifle volunteers in which he served for five years. He went with an expedition to recover the bodies after the White cliffs massacre in February, 1869. This was the occasion on which a party of Waikato Maoris came to the Taranaki district and massacred the Rev. Whiteley and two military settlers, Messrs Milne and Richarhds, and Lieutenant Gascoigne and his wife and three children. The block-house and whaires had been burned down and the natives had disappeared when the expedition arrived.

Some twenty-three years ago a verj successful re-union was held in Ha wera of ex-residents of Otago anc Southland. There wore present or that occasion over two hundred South erners and many of whom have looker forward to a repetition of the event A meeting has been called for to-mor row evening at the Red Castle tea rooms at 8 p.m to discuss the forma tion of an association, and to make ar ranpements for a re-union. Many ar anecdote of the South was recounted at n preliminary meeting of those in terested held recently. Tales of vary ing Inch at- the gold diggings wen! the rounds, as did stories of tie old coaching days, well-known her Scrap ties like Dr. Stuart and others, thf Mackenzie country with' BoUrke’s Pass and the T/indis, arid many a pilaw name which brings a thrill, to the Southerner. A good< attendance is anticipated to-morrow evening, as very many ex-residents of Otago and South land came north to Taranaki. Good comradeship has always been characteristic of those who hail from the south.