MAORI WAR VETERAN

Taranaki Daily News, 6 August 1934, Page 7

MAORI WAR VETERAN

DEATH AT WANGANUI. A resident of Wanganui for over eighty years, Mr. Arthur Zealand Wright, of Brassey Road, St. John’s Hill, answered the last roll call of the Dominion’s pioneers on Friday of last week. Born in Kent on May 1, 1850, Mr. Wright came out to New Zealand as a babe in arms. The fact that his parents were contemplating making their home in the new colony at the time of his birth led to the bestowal on the baby of the middle name Zealand. Mr. Wright’s parents settled in Wanganui and here early set up his home, his first residence being on the bank of the Wanganui River, between Calver’s Corner and Aramoho. The house stood between the steep river bank and what is now Somme Parade. Later the family moved to Mosston, but iij the middle ’sixties they took up property at Brunswick, in the vicinity of where Mr. Claud Smith now has his farm. Disposing of his property after farming there for about half a century, Mr. Wright retried to Brassey Road, where he had resided ever since. Mr. Wright naturally saw a good deal of the troublous times of the later Maori Wars, and he and his brother participated in the skirmish which became known as the Battle of Nukumaru. Mr. L. Wright, of St. John’s Hill, is a brothei' and Mrs. Hunter, of Hamilton, a sister of the late Mr. Wright, who was not married. He was a generous benefactor to charities, particularly the Wanganui Orphanage, while he made several welcome gifts to the Wanganui Museum.