LATE MR. HUNTER SHAW

Taranaki Daily News, 13 October 1931, Page 11

LATE MR. HUNTER SHAW

PATEA'S GREAT BENEFACTOR MANY GRANTS FROM HIS ESTATE. SPARSE DETAILS OF HIS LIFE. « , , . . Lived an honourable, simple life and generously bequeathed his wealth to charities.'’ Such is the inscription on a gravestone in the Onehunga cemetery marking the last resting place of one whom residents of Patea will not forget today as they look back over the 50 years of their borough’s life. People to-day will pass and re-pass, in the course of the jubilee celebrations, memorials of the generosity of the late Mr. Hunter Shaw. With great wisdom the executor of his estate. Mr. E. F. Warren, has endowed buildings, places of recreation and objects which further the happiness of children, and care for their health. The results are emblematic of the life of Hunter Shaw—simple, beautiful in some ways, and everlastingly useful.

The Patea grants from the Hunter Shaw estate total £8536 12 s' sd. This sum has accumulated as follows: Patea hospital (children’s ward £2300, operating table £2OO, nurses’ t< inis court £5O), £2550; Domain Board, £1300; Memorial Building (including grants to the Plunket Society and Library Committee for extras and furniture), £4316 12s sd; Whenuakura Hall Society (Inc.), £5O; and the Waverley Women’s Community Rooms (Inc.), £320. Additional grants from the estate have, of course, been made to all parts of New Zealand. FEW DETAILS OF LIFE.

' Details of the life of Hunter Shaw are very ’little known, and it has only been by the patient research of the solicitor for the estate, Mr. T. E. Roberts, and the executor, Mr. Warren, that the News is able to present a short story to-day. The sixth of a family of ten, Mr. Hunter Shaw was born on May 31, 1839, at Downpatrick, County' Down, Ireland. His father was Mr. John Shaw, a jeweller and watchmaker. After receiving his education in the town of his birth, Mr. Shaw left Belfast by the ship “Lightning” at the age of 17 for Australia, where he landed in 1856. Like most boys who reached the colonies in those early days, he roamed the country working wherever it was possible. It is certain that he was on several goldfields, and also that he traniped hundreds of niile.s, but beyond that little is known of his sojourn in Australia. In the meantime his parents and the other members of the family sailed from London in the “Montmorency,” leaving in December, 1857, and landing at Wellington in April, 1858. Mr. Shaw established a watch-making and jewellery business on Lambton Quay, and was for many years a well-known and widely. respected citizen of Wellington. Later,] Hunter Shaw left Australia for New. Zealand, and some time in the ’6o’s lie bought a large part of the fertile Whenuakura block just south of Patea. “Crescent Falls,” as'he named it, was his home until the end of his life. With the intervening of Maori troubles he joined the troops, but again there are no authentic records of his activities. ' HIS WORD HIS BOND. ’

Early in the history of the settlement of the district he farmed what is now known as Oakleys farm, at Kakaramea, and for several years at a later date he had a place at Alton whcic he was well known, especially in connection with the debates held there.

Mr. Shaw wa.s a man of a retiring aud somewhat timid nature, and was quite unfitted temperamentally for a strenuous business life in a town. He was most honourable; and it was known over a wide district that his word was his bond.

Strangely enough, neither he nor any others of the Shaw family married. All the family predeceased him by a number of years, and it has been said that all the Shaws were very eccentric and that they inherited their peculiar temperaments from their mother’s side. Most of the boys were aimless wanderers, and the only one to achieve scholastic distinction was John Henry Shaw, the eldest brother.. John'Henry, who died in September, 1918, graduated LL.M, at Melbourne University and was a recognised authority on constitutional law. He was a great friend of Sir Robert Stout, at one time being associated with him in the conduct of a school in Dunedin. John Henry was brought over from Melbourne in the ’7o’s io be one of a commission of three for the purposes of the revision of the Statute law of the Dominion. Later he was assistant • Crown Law officer in Wellington, and after that conducted a practice of his own in Auckland, where he died. Mr. Hunter Shaw died four dears ago to-day, and by his express wish was interred beside John Henry in the Onehunga cemetery.