IN MEMORIAM

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 19 May 1915, Page 4

IN MEMORIAM

(By cur Tokacra correspondent.)

It was with deep regret I read in your Monday's issue of the death of Mr Wyrants Olphert (not Oplhet), which occurred at OtakL The late Mr Olphert was acting-adjutant of the 2nd battalion cf the 40th Regiment, when it was ordered from Australia to New Zealand in the sixties, but asked for and obtained a transfer. This battalion took part in the Otapawa engagement near Hawera with the 57th ("Die Hards") on January 13th, 1866, losing some men. Mr Olphert often expressed his regret to me that he did not come on to New Zealand at that date, as by so doing he would have qualified for the Maori war^nedal and pension. Mr Olphert .was the first teacher at the Whakamara school. It was ther.e I first made his acquaintance, and being an old contributor to your paper I induced him to take up the local positionas "Your Own," which he did. It* it* upwards of twenty years since he left there, yet he has regularly corresponded with me, his last letter being dated Kapiti Island, April Bth, 1915, in which he hoped I would supply the readers o£ the Hawera Star with some racynotes on my trip, and also requested me to send him an occasional copy of the Star to relieve the monotony of his lonely retreat. In a former letter he spoke about Mr Kean, fish ponds custodian, Hawera, paying his island home a visit. He also said the place was terribly lonely after school hours. Owing to rough weather, it is sometimes ten or twelve days before there are communications with the mainland Since leaving Whakamara he took » tjiip to his native and beloved country. He had one son, chief officer on a big Home boat trading to New Zealand, but since the war broke out he has been, in command of a gunboat "somewhere" off Europe. This son is married to a daughter of Mr Tennant, at one time manager of the Bank of New South Wales at Patea, and later in the same position at Invercargill. There are two children of the marriage. The late Mr Olphert's father and the late Mr J. R. Lysaght, Mokoia, were fellow Imperial officers and messmates in India about midway in last century.