AH ADVENTUROUS CAREER.

Colonist, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11557, 19 February 1906, Page 4

AH ADVENTUROUS CAREER.

George William Boberta* a nonagenarian, who died at the Ohiro Home, Wellington, on Wednesday morning, had lived .an extremely adventurous life ((says iM " ftew Zealand Times "). Formerly a waterman at Deptford, hxj became a seaman, and voyaged anywhere between the poles for several years. He was a sailor on one of the earliest emigrant ships to New Zealand, and Oh a subsequent voyage was wrecked on the Tasmanian coast, and, nothing else offering, he joined a French Antarctic exploring expedition. Eobert3 worked under Sir John Franklyn ( when the latter was Governor of Taaniftnirt, and was in the service of Lady Franklyn, when Sir John brought her to reside temporarily in Wellington on accepting the domiiiand of the Erebus and Terror-, before, sailing ill search of the north-west passage in 1545-7; When Lady franklyn left for England, Roberts returned to the sea for a while, bus subsequently settled ashore, and lived with the Maoris, For many years he resided in the Foxton district, until the exigencies of old age necessitated his removal to the Ohiro Home. Ho spoke Maori as fluently as his native tongue, and \va_s well up in the history of the war and white setlement in the Wellington district.