Obituary

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 56, 8 March 1943, Page 6

Obituary

In the passing of the late Mr. J. D. S. Cooksley, the Manawatu district has lost a pioneer who will need no monument to remind one of the many successful works he has put through in the SU-odd years lie spent in the district. He was born in Dundry, Somersetshire, and came to New Zealand on the sailing ship Lady Jocelyn, arriving at Lyttelton in October, 1875. He was then 11 years old. His father’s first job was the upkeep of the SumnerLyttelton road and with the help of his sons he quarried the rock and knapped the same by hand. After several years of this work deceased learned to be a blacksmith but a slump came along and, falling to get a job at his trade, he turned back to contracting with his father and brothers, who were doing road, bridge and earthworks at Lake Elsmere. At about this time, having previosuly made his first marriago to Miss L. L. A. Langlois, he decided to make a move to the North Island and his first job was bush felling. He had many and varied experiences, his mates losing their way in the Tainui swamp in the vicinity of Lockwood. They were guided back to camp by Mr. Cooksley with the aid of a vinegar bottle with the bottom cut out and used like a trumpet. Away back in 1891 he was appointed roadman for the Manawatu Road Board, a position held for several years and during which he made the first horse-drawn load grader. In 1894 he had the misfortune to lose his wife and he was left with three young children. It was at this time that he left Bunnythorpe and took up his residence in'Palmerston North where he married his second wife, Miss Petersen. After a term on the Road Board he started out contracting, roadmaking, bridge-building, draining and banking. Among the many contracts completed by the late Mr. Cooksley was the two miles of road known as the “Half Crown” but officially the Ivaiwakarau Road. He formed the Bulls Racecourse, theßangifikei polo grounds, the concrete bridge and floodgate on Burke’s Drain at Raugiotu, and hundreds of different jobs all over the Ivairanga, Manawatu, Horowlienua, Oroua and Pohangina Counties. He took up farming seriously in 1902 at Maugawhata and in 3913 purchased land in Longburn. Mr. Cooksley was a past chairman and director and one of the original suppliers of the Mangawhata Dairy Coy. and it was while at Mangawhata that he lost his second wife.

He is survived by his third wife (nee Miss M. Claridge, of Foxton), ten sons and five daughters. The sons are Messrs. J. A. Cooksley (Opiki), W. E. Cooksley (Tokomaru), H. Cooksley (Auckland). G. Cooksley (Gisborne), A. J. Cooksley (Turakina), I. W., M. W., E. B. .T, and H. L. A. Cooksley (Mangawhata). and F. E. Cooksley (Matamata). The daughters are Mesdames L. Petersen (Pahiatua), M. F. Richardson (To Puke), G. V. Mudford r (Longburn), H. M. V. Wicken (Mangawhata), and T. L. Pedersen (Wellington). He is also survived by two brothers, Mr. .T. Cooksley (Palmerston North) and E. J. Cookslev Brighton).