SIXTY-FIVE YEARS AGO.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18008, 13 July 1928, Page 15 (Supplement)

SIXTY-FIVE YEARS AGO.

LIVELY RECOLLECTIONS. Mr George Bentley, wlio arrived here 65 years ago, and who is still living in Timaru, has had a varied career, and lias a lively recollection of earlyday happenings. Mr Bentley came here from Manchester, with his parents, in the ship Victory, in 1863. He was then about six years of age. The first school which he remembers in. Timaru was held rn Rhodes’s wool shed, on a section off Barnard Street, at the back of what is now know as the Carlton Hotel. This school was taught by a Mr Stanley. The first school to which Mi- Bentley vrent was located a few chains west of the Timaru Drillshed, and was conducted by Mr and Mrs Jaggar. On leaving school he went herding cattle, and after spending some lime at the Meat Preserving Works, at Washdyke, decided to try a change, and went to work in the Waimate bush, where ho was a bullock driver for Mr James Bruce, his job being to cart logs to the sawmill which was then at work there. Mr Bentley still has one of his old bullock whips, made of flax, and attached to a matipo handle 9}ft long. While still quite young, Mr Bentley was apprenticed to the carpentering trade, and helped with the construction of the Main school from its start until it was completed. Like a good many other people he found pleasure in a change, and at the termination of the work of building the Main School, he decided to take to horse work. He made long trips .about the district, as a carter, in the pre-railway days, and carted a good deal of wool from the Mackenzie Country to Timaru. He engaged in horse work for quite a long time, and made several trips to Melbourne in charge of horses which were sent over there for sale. On one occasion Mr Bentley remained in Austru.<n for eight years, when he found employment driving bullocks in the “Kelly” country, for Madame Melba’s father (Mr David. Mitchell). On returning to New Zealand he worked on the wharves here, and is now living in retirement in Timaru. Mr Bentley has a well stored memory of early happenings in Timaru. As evidence of die physical prowess rr some of the pioneers, he recalls that on one occasion two local tradesmen decided to “have it out” with bare fists, the winner of pay the loser £5. The fight took place in a section off Elizabeth Street. The contestants went at it for eight hours, with one break, when the bigger man of the two throw in the sponge, from sheer exhaustion, and handed over the £5.