HISTORICAL PHOTO.

Thames Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 20494, 21 December 1938, Page 2

HISTORICAL PHOTO.

LINK WITH WAITANGI. '

Donation To Dominion;

ME. J. THORN'S INTEREST

SEQUEL TO HAMPTON COURT . VISIT. -..-, r ■

A most interesting story is told in the last issue of the N.Z. Centennial News by Mr. J. Thorn, M.P. for Thames and chairman of the National Historical Committee It is of such

general interest that' it is published in full herewith: —

"On Saturday afternoon, after my return to London from Geneva, Mr. W. S. Jordan, New Zealand High Commissioner ,and I, with our respective wives, paid a visit to Hampton Court. As we set out on the bus none of us thought to contact with any aspect of the Dominion's history; our particular interest was this famous royal residence which Cardinal Wolsey—or workmen he employed, for we noticed the court and the home of the master carpenter ■ —built for King Henry VIIT so pleasantly beside the River Thames. But by good fortune a happy accident befel us. "As we were strolling through one of the cobbled courts, speculating on the events that may have occurred there, we met an officer.in the Domin ions Department with whom Mr. Jordan was acquainted. His first remark was that he was looking for two ladies who had rooms in the court and with whom he had an afternoon-tea engagement. At this moment these two ladies made their appearance and we were intro duced to them. "When they were informed that T had come from New Zealand, one of them—Mrs. Isobel Baynes—said that she loved New Zealand and was direct ly interested in it. On my asking her the reason, she replied that her father was the captain of H.M.S. Herald during the voyage when it took Captain William Hobson to the Bay of Islands to negotiate th» Treaty of Waitangi with the Maoris! Hep father was Cap tain Nias, afterwards Admiral Sir Joseph Nias, K.C.B. "I then told Mrs. Baynes that I war the chairman of the National Histori cal Committee, and at this she said she had a facsimile of the Treaty of Waitangi, and that if we would have afternoon tea with her she would show us her father's signature at seven places on the document. "Now, who could resist such an in vitation? Afternoon, tea in rooms in which so picturesque'and so' etching-' a personality as Henry VIII might have sat him . down . and e,ased his weary bones! So up we went, the tea was enjoyed, and then the Treaty of Waitangi was produced and' opened upon the floor.

"Imagine.the four of us on our knees around the Treaty, with Mrs. Baynes pointing pridefully to her father's signatures. One of them I particularly noticed was affixed in Mercury Bay, which place the fates ordained that J should represent, in the New Zealand Parliament. .. .

"After this experience Mrs. Baynes took us into an inner sitting-room and there showed us hanging on the wall a daguerrotype of her father wearing a uniform, cocked hat, and sword which, she informed us, are now permanently exhibited in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich.

"To my delight she said she would present this photo, to the New Zealand Government as her gift in connection with the Centennial, and standing on a chair she took it down and there agreed to deliver it to the 4 office of our High Commissioner, I brought this photo, back to New Zealand with me and have handed.it to the secretary of the National Historical Com mittee. I may add that I accepted Mrs. Baynes' gift with some reluctance, because it was obvious that she suffered something of a wrench in parting with it. "I regard that Saturday afternoon as the most wonderful in my life. Quite unexpectedly it brought nre into friendly relationship with a lady so «,intimately associated with the greatest event in the history of my native land."