PASSING OF A PIONEER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 183, 3 July 1928, Page 2

PASSING OF A PIONEER.

MR H. T. W. SOUTHEE. There passed away at Walton on Thursday, Juno IU, another of New Zealand’s fast diminishing band of pioneers, in the person of Mr Henry Thomas Wilkinson South.ee, at the age of ninety-eight years. . Mr Southee was a native of Maidstone, Kent (England), son of the late Mr and Mrs John Southee of that place, and he was the sixth member of a family of thirteen. He came to New Zealand eighty-seven years ago in the sailing ship Lady Nugent. Landing at Wellington, Mr Southee had his full share of roughing it as a pioneer, for. there were then no roads and no houses where tho city .of Wellington now stands. Readers of early New Zealand history will (says tho Matamata Record) recall that in those far-off days the hardy pioneers had to live in tents and wliares made out of clay and r.aupo, which the Maoris showed them how to build. There were also sod whares as known in older countries. Then came the timber shack, trees being pitsawn, and Mr Southee took his turn at that slow, laborious, back-breaking job too, as well as at roadmaking, draining, and generaf farm work under conditions much more arduous than exist to-day. However, when Mr Southee landed on March 17, 1841, he had his career to carve out of primeval nature. Ho later worked for the lato Mr Luxford in a butchery business at Wellington, then went farming at the Lower Hutt. Although he did not actually take part in the Maori war he was attached to tho militia in a non-comb.at-ant capacity, but ready to take tho field should occasion require. After disposing of tho Hutt property lie took up a farm at Feilding, but of lato years h© liad lived a retired life witli relatives.

Mr Southee was of an unassuming disposition, and took no part in public affairs, though he was a brother of Royal Rose Lodge, 1.0.0. F., Hutt Valley. Ho was a good shot with both tho rifle and the sporting gun, and he astonished his sons one day when he told them to put up a benzine tin and he took a shot at it. “He must have put nearly every pickle into it,” was the comment when they went to view the pattern. Tho old pioneer was hale and hearty all his life, and smoked his pipe up till tlio dav before his death. He was ill for only three days. His wife, who was the fifth daughter of the lato Mr and Mrs Robert Wiggins, of Napier, predeceased him twenty-eight years ago. The bereaveed comprise two sons, Messrs Henrv Robert John Southee and Robert Wiggins Southee, of Walton; also eight grandchildren.