A VALUABLE GROUP

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 70, 20 February 1939, Page 6

A VALUABLE GROUP

FLOCK HOUSE TRAINEES. THRIFT AND ENTERPRISE Illuminating figures showing how progressive and valuable a section of New Zealand’s population have Flock House trainees and their families become were quoted by Mr Edward Newman, C.M.G., chairman of the Elock House Trustees, when officiating at the opening ceremony of “Kaianga Moo,” the rest home of the Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union, at Awapuni, on Saturday. The home was formerly Girls’ Elock House, where the daughters of Britisli seamen received training under the Flock House Fund.

“As is well known,” Mr Newman said, “this property and the surrounding land was acquired by the Seamen’s Fund for the purpose of training the overseas girls brought to New Zealand by the fund to make them suitable as assistants to farmers’ wives throughout the Dominion. During the five years, approximately, in which Girls 1 ’ Flock House was used bv the fund for training girls (May, 1926. to July, 1931) 128 girls were brought from Great Britain and passed through the establishment, all daughters of British seamen who lost their lives or were incapacitated during the war. All the girls were thoroughly trained in household and light farming duties, and placed in employment on farms and stations. To-day. 79 of these girls are married with homes of their own in New Zealand, and have 142 children, and 49 girls are still single. Irrespective of brothers who were brought to Flock House Station and trained there, the fund has assisted 56 relatives of the girls to come to New Zealand and establish themselves here, viz:—24 fathers and mothers, 25 brothers and sisters, and seven sisters’ children.

“Of the married girls 40 are married to farmers. 17 of whom are farming on their own account. Of the single girls 18 are still in employment on farms and stations, five are trained hospital nurses and sisters, one is a trained kindergarten teacher, one a trained poultry expert, two are partners with their brothers on farms, and two went into business as cake shop proprietors and did so well that they now own and manage a block of flats in a city in which they have invested approximately £3OOO.

“I desire to refer shortly to Flock House Station, the larger property, near Bulls, owned by the Seamen’s Fund, at which the sons of British Seamen were trained for a farming career,” continued Mr Newman. “Up to two years ago, when the fund’s ownership of this property ceased, we had trained there 983 boys. The great majority of these boys have done exceedingly well. A considerable number have farms of their own and many hold substantial positions of trust throughout the oommunity. Approximately 200 of the boys are now married and have homes of their own, and the fund has also assisted many of their relatives to New Zealand. “One can safely say that the members of the New Zealand community with Flock House affiliations—fathers, mothers, sons and their wives, daughters and their husbands, and children —are now well over tho 2000 mark,” Mr Newman concluded.