DIAMOND WEDDING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 272, 17 November 1945, Page 2

DIAMOND WEDDING

MR. AND MRS. JAMES ALLISON Last Wednesday, at their homestead, “Paori,” No. 1 Line, Wanganui, Mr. and Mrs. James Allison celebrated their diamond wedding. Tney were married at St. Stephen s Churcn, Marlon, on November 14, 1885, ana have been one of the pioneer families of the Wanganui district.

Mr. Allison was the youngest son of the late Dr. James Allison, who came to New Zealand from the Ola Country in one of the eaiiy sailing ships, the journey taking 11 months. The first ship on which Dr. Allison intended making his journey to New Zealand it was discovered, was doomed. The crew had intended sinking her. The passengers, in the end, stayed in England and hung about until another craft could be obtained. Dr. Allison married Miss Georganna Gilfillan, the first white woman to be married in Wanganui, and a daughter of a family many of whom were massacred by the Maoris in the Matarawa Valley, 1847. Dr. and Mrs. Allison settled eventually at Lamb Hili. Mr. James Allison, as a boy, had the rather unique distinction of being the only boy in a girls’ school, at a time when Mrs. Macdonald was head-mis-tress of Royston House, Wanganui. He was there as a student for some time, and then went to Mr. Thompson’s school, later to the Wanganui Collegiate School and to Nelson College. Leaving college he went, as a cadet on the Heaton Park Estate, near Bulls under Mr. Robert Wilson.

Subsequently Mr. Allison took up 1000 acres of bush land in the Onga district, out from Hunterville. He sold out there in 1899 (in July) and bought portion of the Campbell Estate, on the No. 1 Line, where he lives to-day. Mrs. Allison comes of a well-known Wanganui pioneer family, the Towgoods. She was the fourth daughter of the late Mr. Stephen Herbert Towgood, of Grassmere, Wanganui. Both had many happy recollections this week of their marriage. They look back now on days vastly different from the present, when there was a greater spirit of self-reliance than nowadays. Mr. Allison served on local bodies—the Rangitikei County Council, the Wanganui County Council, and was one of the pioneering stalwarts of the Farmers’ Union. He still retains a keen interest in horticulture, something handed down to him from his family. He and his wife, while they are appreciative of the vast progress which has been made in speed and invention, still have the fondest memories for the old days.

There were four sons and tw* daughters in their family—Herbert James was killed at Passchendaele in World War 1 Alexander was accidentally killed at Hawera, and the other sons are Geoffrey and Fred. Mr. Fred Allison is on the place with his father at “Paori.” The two daughters aru Mrs. H. Kemp, Cape Runaway, and Mrs. A. B. Tylee, Taumarunui. Mr. and Mrs. Allison have received congratulations from a very wide circle of friends on the occasion of their diamond wedding.