"OLDEST WATERMAN."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20074, 11 October 1928, Page 12

"OLDEST WATERMAN."

MR. J. H. BRADNEY'S! LIFE. golden wedding to-day. FROM WHARE TO PARLIAMENT. When Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Bradney were married in Auckland 50 years ago today the establishment of a home was fraught with greater difficulty and hardship than it is in this era of deferred payments. They were the days when, to live, adventurous souls pitted courage and muscle against primitive forces in a still young colony. Mr. Bradney began his life beforo the mast. He put his hand to practically every kind of manual labour by which men earn a living. For years he belonged to that small but hardy race who plied row-boats for hire on the Auckland Harbour before the advent of the motorlaunch, and he is still known to his shipping confreres as the oldest Auckland waterman. By diligence and grit he worked Jiis way in the world until ho won an honoured placo in Parliament. To-day, at the ago of 75, ho is a partner in the firm ho founded, Messrs. Bradney and Binns, shipping proprietors, and enjoys a still energetic life in his city office. Early Struggles. Born in Staffordshire, England, on April 2, 1353, missing April Fool's Day by a matter of minutes, Mr. Bradney came to New Zealand with his parents as a boy of six. The ship was the Mermaid, from Liverpool. The Bradney family took up land at Awhitu under the Government's "40-acre system," whereby each family received a grant oi 40 acres, with an additional 20 acres for each child. The venture was not eminently successful, and the land was sold a few years later for £2 an acre. To-day the same land is a very productive agricultural holding. The family moved to a house, still standing, in Freeman's Bay. In those days the water came right up to Patteson Street, where the trams aro now running. In 1860 another move was made, this time to Chelsea, where, at a place then called Duck Creek, a home was made in a two-roomed whare, built of earth sods, with wooden shutters for windows. The boy used to walk every day to Lake Takapuna for his schooling.

"Kun-away Money."

When he was 11 years of age Mr. Bradney went on a farm at 4s a week. The wage increased in instalments of 6d every six months, but the farmer held back the increments, which he called "run-away money," to dissuade the boy from absconding, and at the end of three years' apprenticeship the sums had accumulated sufficiently to enable the youth to purchase three small heifer calves as a present for his mother. After butchering in a slaughter-house and making bread in a bakery, where he helped to prepare a banquet for the Duke of Edinburgh, the boy ran away to sea and joined the small steamer Go-ahead as a deck-hand. He sailed round the coast for somo time in the three-masted schooner Policeman, tired of a seaman s life and went, bushfelling at Coromandel, haunted the Thames goldficld, and then tried his hand rowing tho ferry-boats plying between Auckland and Northcote. He served on tho first steamer to enter the Kaipara service, the Liiv, then went abroad on deep-sea vessels trading between Australia, San Francisco and England. While in Geelong he met his wife and married her in Auckland a few years later when holding a post as pilot on the Kaipara bar. Founder of Shipping Firm. Die spirit of adventure still moved him. Ho drove a team of horses on the old Queen Street Wharf, went into the employ of tho Auckland Harbour Board, of which lie was later to become a member, and finally went on the harbour as a waterman —a hazardous career about which Sir Henry Brett has written much in his book. "White Wings." In 1884 he founded the present partnership with Mr. E. C. Binns, building the launch De-

spatch to run the first service. The firm then acquired the steamer Vivid, built in 1879 and slill running. ' The launch Presto, now used by the port health officer, was ono of the earliest boats in the firm's fleet. There was also the old Pitoitoi, now converted to oil and renamed fho Wakanuia, which was followed by the new Pitoitoi. The Advance, now in the Waik.ito, was another boat. Since then the firm has acquired the Kaipatiki, the Onewa and, last year, the Kiwi. Mr. Bradney served as a member of the Auckland Harbour Board for nine years, and was sent to Parliament for Auckland West in 1911. He was also a momber of tho Mount Albert Borough Council. He has been an enthusiastic member of many musical organisations since the earliest days, and is the oldest member of the Auckland Choral Society. The old Amateur Opera Club and the Auckland Leidertafel knew him as &, staunch tenor, «nd he is still a regular chorister in (he Municipal Choir. Mr. and Mrs. Bradney have four sons and two daughters. Their home at 8, Sherwood Bond, Mount Eden, is beinc inundated with congratulations on the attainment of their golden wedding.