OBITUARY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19748, 22 September 1927, Page 12

OBITUARY.

MR. ARCHIBALD CLEMENTS. SIXTY YEARS IN PROVINCE. EARLY MAYOR OF CAMBRIDGE. A highly respected resident of Auckland, Mr. Archibald Clements, aged 91, passed away yesterday at his residence, j 5, Birdwood Crescent, Pnrnell. i Born at Keadue, County Roscommon, Mr. Clements was educated at the national school of the village. His subsequent training was wholly on business lines. From his 14th to his 18th year he was in the employment of a firm at Mohill. Then he transferred his services to a Londonderry house of which, before he had quitted his youth, he was appointed manager, remaining in that posi tion for eight years. His period of child hood in Ireland covered the years of the potato famine of 1846-7, when large numbers of people died from starvation. Service in Waikato War. The reports of the wonderful richness of tho Victorian goldfields reached the young Irishman and he determined to set sail for the antipodes in quest of fortune. He arrived in Melbourne in 1861, and took a situation in a city office. Then came the news of the great finds of Gabriel Reid and others in Otago, which determined him to go farther afield. First, as far as New Zealand v~as concerned, he tried Hogburn, now Monnt Ida, but after pegging out on several Otago fields without marked success, he decided to remove to Auckland This was in 1863, when the Maori War in the Waikato was in progress, and all the able-bodied men in the community were under arms. Wit'iin 24 hours of his arrival Mr. Clements joined the Third Waikato Militia, and he afterwards transferred to the commissariat transport corps. Jn one engagement Mr. Clements was wounded in the thigh. His name appears in the list of New Zealand war medallists. Pioneer ol Cambridge. On peace being restored, Mr. Clements settled in Cambridge as a general storekeeper, and he remained there for 28 years. Clements' Park, of 250 acres, adjoining the town belt, was the site of his residence for over 20 years. In the same period he carried on an extensive branch business at Thames goldfield, then in its heyday. Mr. Clements was a member of the first road board of Cambridge, and after the town attained to municipal status he was one of its early Mayors. For some years he was a member of the Waikato Hospital Board. About 1891 Mr. Clements removed to Auckland, and he has been a resident of Parnell ever since. Settlers from Ireland. In one of his visits to Ireland in the "seventies," Mr. Clements was instrumental in carrying out a settlement scheme. Before departure he suggested to Sir George Grey, then Premier of the colony, the desirability of bringing out a number of suitable immigrants, of both sexes. Sir George fell in with tho proposal, with the result that Mr. Clements brought back with him about 50 young men and women, many of whom have since ranked among New Zealand's most prosperous settlers. v. Mr. Clements was one of the senior trustees of the Auckland Savings Bank for very manv years. Also he was a trustee of the Knox Home for Incurables, Tamaki, having been a life-long friend and trusted adviser of the late Mrs. Elizabeth Knox, whose bequest was tho foundation of that institution. It was a matter of pride to Mr. Clements that he was appointed to the Commission of the Peace over 50 years ago, he and the late Mr. Andrew Dilworth being the first two local justices appointed when the Grey Government took office in 1877. Mrs, Clements, who was the daughter of the late Mr. William Rose, of Ballinlee. Countv Longford, Ireland, died 13 years ago. There is one daughter