ADVENTUROUS LIFE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17099, 4 November 1929, Page 12

ADVENTUROUS LIFE

MR. T. BELL, OF SUNDAY IS. DEATH AT PAHIATUA Few men have led such adventurous lives as Mr. Thomas 8011, who died in the Pahiatua Hospital recently at the age of 90 years. K.ven beiare he became involved in litigation with the .New Zealand Government for possession of Sunday Island, he had been engaged in numerous occupations and had travelled through almost every part of New Zealand and the South Sea Islands.

The late Mr. Bell, who was born at Leeds, England, was the only son of Mr. Henry Bell, founder of the Napier Hospital. ' He arrived in New Zealand from Ballarat, having reached Australia at the age of 16 on a merchantman. In the Dominion, Mr. Bell first of all went on to a. sheep station in Otago. He letlt this to join in* the gold rush to Gabriel's Gully. Later lie' went to Napier, where he married. Never in one place for very long and filled with the spirit of adventure, Mr Bell next turned his attention to a flax mill which he started at Nuhaka. Four years later he went to Poverty Bay and. bought 1500 acres of land. His next venture was conducting a general store in the Bay of Plenty, which he sold later and again went farming near 'Whatakane. With a family of four, Mr. and Mrs. Bell left for Tonga, but the climate proved unsuitable and they journeyed on to Samoa. In 1879 the 'family decided to go to Sunday Tsland, in the Kerniandec Group. ' Here they stayed for. 1.0 years, the only people on this island of 5000 acres.

About 1889 the British Government annexed (Sunday Island, but the Bells knew nothing of it until the New Zealand Government sent down the ship Stella to annex the island formally. The Government granted Mr. Bell 274 acres ,f land—the remainder was subdivided ■uid leased. This was insufficient to maintain a large family of 10 and so some of the children decided to leave. Mr. Bell remained on the island for some vears, combating his claim with the Government for the freehold of the whole island.

However the Government refused to recognise the claim, and on July, 4, 1914, Mr. Bell and the rest of his family decided to leave the island and settle in New Zealand. For some years Mr. Bell had lived with his daughter at Pahiatua, He is survived by his widow, aged 82, who lives in Auckland, and a family of eight children.