VARIED CAREER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21295, 23 September 1932, Page 10

VARIED CAREER

DEATH OF MR. A. QERRING TEACHER AND TOWN CLERK FORMER OFFICIAL AT HOWICK The death occurred at the residence of his daughter, 'Mrs. W. A. Morgan, Aratapu, yesterday morning of Mr. Albert ■ Gerring, formerly well known as clerk to the Howick Town Board. He was 87 years of age. Mr. Gerring had a varied career in colonial life. He was born in South London in 1845, and in 1864 he came to Auckland in the ship Talbot, going with his fellow-immigrants to Parua Bay, near Whangarei, and lived in that neighbourhood for some years. When he finally left the district he returned io Auckland ps a passenger in a fore-and-aft schooner engaged in the calUe trade. The northern peninsula was then one of the main sources of Auckland's meat supply, the beasts being regularly landed at Kohimarama. On arrival the schooner's crew left her and young Albert Gerring agreed with the captain to help him in taking the vessel to Auckland. Then he shipped as a member of her company. After making a trip to the Cook Islands in the same schooner he went, at the end of 1868, to the Thames goldfield, then not long opened, and was employed for a while in a store at Grahamstown, after which he worked for some months as a ! miner. I Sir. Gerring drifted into the scholastic I profession in a rather casual manner. From the Thames'he returned to Paru3 I Bay, and while he was there in 1872 the mastership of the local school became vacant. Mr. Gerring, as the only man of education in the vicinity, was asked by the settlers to take the position, and did so. For the next 24 years he remained in the service of the Auckland Education Board, teaching next at Kaurihohore, then as an assistant at Beresford Street, under Mr. E. C. Harrison, and next at Onehunga. While teaching there, he trudged out for some time on a bee-line route from his home at Newton past the back of Mount Eden and across the Epsom flat, then a purely pastoral agricultural area, and again trudging home in the evening. From 1878 to 1892 he was assistant master of the Kauaeranga Boys' School, Thames, and then became headmaster of the Aratapu School. After five years there he went to Waipu for 12 months and then took his last teaching post as headmaster of the school at Te Moari, near Kaeo. Finally he retired from the teaching profession in 1906. In 1909 Mr. Gerring was appointed clerk to the Howick Road Board. When Howick became a town district he remained in the service as its clerk, and he lived to be one of the best-known figures in local government matters in or around Auckland. He retired from the position of clerk in 1927 when over 82 years of age. In the early | part of 1927 his residence at Howick was destroyed by fire and a friend and companion, Mr. E. H. W. Dixon, lost his life. Mr. Gerring took up his residence at the Marine Hotel, Howick, and nine months after the destruction of his own home the hotel was burned down, Ml'. Gerring being a heavy loser. Mr. 'Gerring had remarkably good health until a few weeks ago, when he became ill. He was a keen bowler, and was a familiar figure on many bowling greens in the province. He played regularly last season on the Dargaville Club's green. Mr. Gerring's wife predeceased him 31 years ago, and he is survived by three daughters and two sons. I