LEADERS OF SOCIETY

Observer, Volume 2, Issue 33, 30 April 1881, Page 353

LEADERS OF SOCIETY

No. 1. — Mrs. Whitakee,

The wives of the Governors of this Colony have been of course, in one sense, its leaders, and few will forget the perfect manners and foreign grace of Lady Bo wen. But they have come and gone after a shorter or a longer stay, and left us sometimes mourning, sometimes the reverse. Mrs. Whitaker, for over thirty years, with two or three occasional absences, has been the lawyers (for it was not good to be a lawyer in the early times — ironmongers, drapers, butchers, &c, made large fortunes, and the man who worked by his head gave way to the man who worked by his hand) — Mrs. Whitaker was indefatigable in helping any one in distress, and even then we had sad cases, though not amongst the labouring class. She was one of the chief patronesses of the first bazaar ever held in Auckland for the relief of the widows and orphans of the British fleet and army after the Crimean war. She founded the Old Women's Kefuge, and for a long time sustained and visited it. I never knew her turn a deaf ear to any tale of real distress. As the wife of the Superintendent of Auckland and the Attorney-General of New Zealand, she has exercised a wide and generous hospitality. Her country house at the Lake and her house in town are equally open to her friends and visitors. For the benefit of those of my young readers who don't like soiling their the leader of our society ; nor has her position changed very much during that period. She came to New Zealand as the step daughter of

the then Colonial Treasurer, the Hon. Mr. Shepherd, and of course took her place at once amongst the creme cle la creme. Nor was the society then to he despised ; it consisted of the officers of crack regiments and magnificent men of war. New Zealand was then England's pet Colony, and was pampered with men and money ad libitum. At Kororarika Miss Shepherd married Mr. Whitaker, who was even then a man of mark. Of course she had to rough it with all the early colonists, lohefor months together with only a soldier servant to help her, and to go to the pleasant reunions of those days in a cart or waggon, if it Avas too far or too muddy to walk. But women never grumbled in those days over real hardships— they left that to the present generation. I look hack through the mists and shadows of thirty years, and see Mrs. Whitaker —tall, and slim, and fair, with pretty sloping shoulders, and a sweet smile, which she still retains. Ah, well, "La jeimesse evanouit." In after days, when better times dawned upon fingers, I may mention that Mrs. Whitaker is a first-class cook, and many visitors to the Lake will remember the delicious plats produced there under the superintendence of her skilful fingers. From having spent her early life in the West Indies, the Attorney-General's wife has a certain imperiousness of manner which some people take for pride, but she is not in reality proud. Into the humblest cottage at the Lake she goes, and is on familiar terms with all the people. Mrs. Whitaker gives the old folks an annual entertainment, and provides the Sunday-school feast. Like most women, she hasatemper, but Ineverknewher(without some very cogent cause) turn her back on an old friend. Circumstances may have changed, years may have passed, but she is ever staunch and true. When we lose her there will be few to take her place, and none certainly to do the work that she has done. Esmond.