NEW PLYMOUTH PIONEER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19834, 3 January 1928, Page 10

NEW PLYMOUTH PIONEER.

msss l. shaw. t OVER 85 YEARS IN DISTRICT. [BY TEX.EGRAJPH. —OWN COitRE£POND2IiT. ] NEW PLYMOUTH* Monday. Tb»i death occurred on Saturday of Miss Lydia Shew, aged 93, who was one of the five survivors of the settlers who came to New Plymouth in September, 1841, by the ship Amelia Thompson. Miss Shaw was born at Plymouth in 1834, and during her 36 years' residence in New Plymouth had seen it gmw from a hamlet of raupo whares to its pfsent proportions. The Amelia Thompson was the second ship which arrived at. New Plymouth and since 1841 Miss Shaw had lived in the house in Carrie Street, erected soon after the ship's arrival, b-f b;r father, Mr. J. T. Shaw, who brought the material from England. In 186? Miss Shaw became & teacher, i taking over & small school conducted in a meeting house of Kawau Pa, near her 1 home, which the Maoris had vacate at the outbreak i>l war in 1860. This school was subsidised by the provincial Government and became a Government school ■ under the Act of 1878, In 1884 Miss Shaw was selected head mistress of a new school on South Road, which later became kuown as the West End primary school, and there she remained until her retirement in 1900. Miss Shaw was visiting Auckland during the Maori troubles of 1850 and consequently the alarms of that period did not come within her actual experience. She wa3 highly loved and respected. Prior to her death there were five generations of the family living, for she had great-great-groat nephews and nieces.