CAPTAIN HOBSON'S DESCENDANT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23106, 4 February 1937, Page 2

CAPTAIN HOBSON'S DESCENDANT

MEETS MR WALTER NASH (From Our Own Correspondent* (By Air Mail) LONDON, Jan. 9. Mr Walter Nash's visit to Liverpool was the occasion for an interesting coincidence. He was entertained by the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce on the occasion of the first public appearance of its newly appointed Vicechancellor, Mr J. L. Stocks, who was accompanied by Mrs Stocks, the great-grand-daughter of Captain Hobson, R.N., first Governor of New Zealand. Mr Nash was interested to learn that Captain Hobson's daughter, Eliza, married, in 1853, Sir Alexander Meadows Rendel, the civil engineer, a member of a famous family of engineers whose name is a household word in Birkenhead. Of that marriage there was a daughter, Constance, who married Dr R. D. Brinton. Mrs Stocks is their daughter. Thus Mrs Stocks is a great-grand-daughter, also, of the great engineer James Meadows Rendel, who ranks with Smeaton, Rennie, and Telford. Rendel, in 1843. planned the first docks at Birkenhead, and his protracted defence of them in Parliament against hostile local influence shortened his life, though it has resulted in invaluable records of early engineering practice. In 1850-1853 he designed docks for Garston, and made the Birkenhead, Lancashire and Cheshire Junction railway. His third son was raised to the peerage as Lord Rendel.