LONG LIFE IN DOMINION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20656, 30 August 1930, Page 12

LONG LIFE IN DOMINION.

DEATH OF EX-CCNSTABLE.

NELSON'S FIRST WHITE CHILD. ■["BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] WELLINGTON. Friday. Tho death has occurred of ex-C'onstable Jeffries, once a familiar figure on the West Coast goldfields, and a man whose long life almost covers the history of New Zealand as a British colony. Mr. Jeffries, whose father was an employee of the New Zealand Company, was bom at Nelson on May 23, 1842, his parents having arrived by the ship London tho previous February, and accordingly he was in his £9th year. On tho occasion of the visit, of the Duke of Edinburgh to Nelson. Mr. Jeffries was presented by . tho late Bishop Sifter to His Royal Highness as the first whit* child born in Nelson. Ho joined the Police Force at. Wakamarina shortly after the discovery of gold there in 1864. A year later adventure tempted him to Otago, where he served as a mounted constable, and assisted in the escort of gold from tho Dunstan diggings to Dunedin.

At that time Burgess and Kelly, two of tho men subsequently hanged for th# Maungatapu murders, near Nelson, wore serving a sentence .in Dunedin Prison for highway robbery, and Constable Jeffries recognised them a year later when ho was travelling up the Grey Valley, a few days before the murder of George Dobson. Later he went to the West Coast as a mounted constable, and was appointed "collector of goldfields revenue for Grey Valley and Mangahua. Mr. Jeffries subsequently held various important police posts in Ficton, Nelson and on tho West Coast. He retired the age of 65. For more than 25 years ho had lived in Nelson. His wife died in 1916. Ho is survived by five sons and two daughters, namely, Mr. William Jeffries, of Hokitika, Messrs. Arthur and Frank Jeffries, of Wellington, Messrs. J. K. and James Jeffries, of Lower Hutt, Mrs. Torbij,, of Wellington, and Mrs. A an Houtt, of Raglan.