OBITUARY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16375, 24 June 1927, Page 2

OBITUARY

ME. THOMAS COATES (Special to the Herald.' AUCKLAND, last niglit. Air. Thomas Coates, of Orakei, who died this morning and -who was an uncle of the Prime Minister, Mr. J. G: Coates, in his BUth year, sailed for New Zealand in the ship Winterer with his brother Edward, arriving in Auckland in 1866, being then 19 years of age. The young man immediately went north, and after some months acquired a tract of land at Pahi, on the little known shores of the Kaipara. The two Coates brothers were the first to introduce Shropshire Downs sheep to the colony. Mr. Edward Coates, Who died in 1905, was the father of the present Prime Minister. In 1873 the late Mr. Coates married Elizabeth Phillips, daughter of J nomas and Emily Phillips, of Sudelv House, Wmchcombe, Gloucestershire. As a welcome to the bride, the Kaipara Maoris lit numerous bonfires on the hills round i'ahi. It was there that eight of Mr. Coates' children were born. In 1886 the family took up more land at Pukpkaroro. (Kaiwaka), where the two younger children- were born and, 10 years later, deceased moved to Auckland to educate his family. He took leases of native land at Orakei, where, 'after a Short stay at Meadowbank (Kemuera), and Kohimarama. he built his late residence, where 1 he has lived for about 30 years. The late Mr. Coates took an active interest in the development of .North Auckland and was the prime mover in pushing the •construction of the trunk line through to Kaipara. He was the first chairman of the Orakei Road Board, set up about 28 years ago—a position which he held to within a few weeks of his death.

Ellen Elizabeth Wylie, widow of the late Joseph Wylie, formerly a nativeschool teacher 'of Galatea and storekeeper at Rotorua passed away at the King George V. Hospital this week. She was a native of Plymouth and came to New Zealand in 1&75, in the "Cnnisbrook Castle," with the Vesey Stewart Steelers, and made their home at Katikati. After seven years in Tauthey moved to Botonra, where they opened the first store in the new township. They thus had an intimate knowledge of the hard conditions of the natives and early Settlers. Mrs. Wylie, especially at Galatea, whither the-v removed a year after the Tafawera eruption, in the loihr distance from dortors. counsellors, and nurses, proved a real "mother'' to the natives, who came to trust her kindliness and clear judgment with fullest confidence.