THE LATE MR. ROBERT C. HUGHES.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 January 1935, Page 4

THE LATE MR. ROBERT C. HUGHES.

The death of Mr. Robert Clinton Hughes removes one more of the links between the pioneering days and modem Taranaki. For sixty years he had practised as a barrister and solicitor at New Plymouth, a record of professional work longer than could be claimed by any other member of the legal profession in the Dominion. But while Mr. Hughes maintained to the full the high principles of that profession he was not only a highly respected man of law but a great citizen.' The finest monument to the public spirit of Mr. Hughes and men imbued with the same desire to improve their town is Pokekura Park. One of the original trustees when the park area was made a public reserve, Mr. Hughes never lost his interest in that and other efforts to beautify New Plymouth. At the age of four score years he was willing to do his share of voluntary manual labour on behalf of the Beautifying Society, and his insistence upon the value of the smaller as well as the larger reserves in the town will bear fruit as the years pass away. In arts and crafts, in such social services as the prevention of cruelty to animals, in any cause in fact that made in his opinion for the improvement of the community of which he was an honoured member Mr. Hughes was an eager and self-sacrificing enthusiast. He has passed to his rest full of years, and with a record of public and professional service of which any man might be proud, a record that was unbroken until the last few months of failing health. Such lives as Mr. Hughes’ are an example and stimulus to all who believe, as he did, that the greatest satisfaction is to be found in the true citizenship that entails ready and continuous service for others.