A PIONEER FIGURE PASSES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23201, 27 May 1937, Page 16

A PIONEER FIGURE PASSES

DEATH OF MRS R. H. RHODES The death occurred on Saturday last at her residence, Timaru, of Mrs Jessy Rhodes, widow of Robert Heaton Rhodes, in her seventy-first year. Well known throughout the Dominion and in North and South Canterbury in particular, Mrs Rhodes had innumerable friends. In her earlier days she was extremely well known for her many activities on public bodies, and during her whole life was noted for her kindly and cheerful personality. Mrs Rhodes was the youngest of nine children of Mr and Mrs Charles Robert Bidwill, and was born at Pihautea, Featherston, on November 7, 1866. Her father was a son of Mr J. G. Bidwill. of Exeter, England, and her mother was Catherine, eldest daughter of Mr and Mrs John Orbell, of Waikouaiti, Otago. On April 16. 1890, she married Mr Robert Heaton Rhodes, of Blue Cliffs, South Canterbury, son of Mr George Rhodes, the Levels. Mr and Mrs Rhodes lived on the station at Blue Cliffs until the death of Mr Rhodes in 1918. after which Mrs Rhodes moved to Timaru, the station being carried on afterwards 'by her daughter and her husband, Dr P. R. Woodhouse. . , Mr Charles Robert Bidwill arrived in 1843 at Wellington, then known as Port Nicholson, and subsequently moved to Kopungarara. He was the first settler to arrive in the Wairarapa with sheep, travelling by way of Okiwi Bay, the mouth of the Wainui-o-mata River and the coastline to Lake Wairarapa, Round the Mouka Mouka rocks, which were always washed by the sea, four men with the party carried the whole flock of sheep without the loss of a single animal. Later, near Pihautea, where he built his homestead, a small quantity of wheat was planted, probably the first grown in the Wairarapa. _., About the year 1847 Mr Charles Bidwill purchased Figaro, the first thoroughbred to be imported to New Zealand. The horse had been brought from Australia as a yearling by Mr James Watt, of Wanganui, in 1840, and won a race as a three-year-old at Petone, or Burnham Water, one of the first race meetings held in New 'Zealand. Soon after, Messrs Charles Bidwill and Mr Charles (afterwards Sir Charles) Clifford had taken up their holdings, a number of other settlers arrived, and in 1847 the inhabitants of the Wairarapa numbered 59 men, 14 women, and 19 children, while the stock consisted of 11,291 sheep, 1365 cattle, and 73 horses, 46 of the last: named '• animals belonging to Mr Charles Bidwill, who died in 1884. When a girl of 14, Jessy Bidwill (later Mrs Rhodes) was a passenger on a train which was blown over by the wind while travelling over_ the Rimutakas, but she escaped injury, although some little time previously three passengers had been killed in a similar accident. In her early days Mrs Rhodes was a noted horsewoman, and at a private steeplechase meeting at Pihautea in 1883 the principal event, the Pihautea Steeplechase, in which there were six starters, was won by a short head by Mr W. E. Bidwill's Beppo, with the owner up, from Jessy Bidwill's TaW Mrs Rhodes's only child. AiriniElizabeth, married Dr Philip Randal Woodhouse, formerly medical superintendent of the Wellington Hospital. Di Woodhouse served in the Great war from 1914 to 1919, in which he was promoted to major and awarded the D. 5.0., M.C., and bar.