HOSTESS TO HUNDREDS

Wanganui Chronicle, 25 February 1947, Page 6

HOSTESS TO HUNDREDS

CURATOR OF TREATY HOUSE One of the busiest hostesses in New Zealand during the past holidays was Miss Katherine Lloyd, curator of Treaty House, Waitangi. During December Miss Lloyd received more than 5000 visitors. ’

They came by car, caravan, and launch. Some arrived by cycle for many young people pedalled their way around the north Auckland district these holidays. New Zealanders are showing an increasing awareness of Waitangi, which has been rightly described by Lord Bledisloe as the “cradle of the nation,” and the December total of visitors equalled that of a good year before the war. Last year in all 17,000 visitors were recorded. The daughter of a keen historian and herself particularly interested in early New Zealand, Miss Lloyd’s experience as a former member of the teaching profession has equipped her well for her unusual job. She makes Waitangi and its significance real io hundreds of visitors, and particularly to the school children who come from all parts of the Auckland district on organised tours. It was r tribute to her powers as a raconteur when one of her youngest listeners asked, wideeyed. “And were you here in those days?”

The simple, white-columned dignity of Treaty House, with its moss-grown, wooden-shingled roof, brought a poignant reminder of home to many a New Englander among American servicemen who visited Waitangi during (he war. The scene can have altered little since Hobson’s day. The house still faces over a grassy headland and across blue waters dotted with islands that look ridiculously tike battered hats flung upon the sea. Maori girls and boys still fish on the rocks below, but the girls wear coloured "Roman” sandals and “Peasant” skirts, and the harmonies that drift up from the beach are the latest American song hits, interspersed with negro spiriturals.

Under one of the big, old English trees on the lawn lies a giant anchor, crudely fashioned. It was discovered recently at Pahia and identified by

Lloyd's of London as having belonged to the brig Pioneer. Fine hydrangeas in varying depths of rose grow near the house, and hibiscus trees are sslashed with vivid vermillion blooms beside the young native bush, which is fast forming a background of bronze and green behind the white building. The garden is the proud care of a retired sea captain, who «hose this spot of all he found in his world wanderings. Every ten minutes if less, it seems, the visitors' bell announces still onother group to be conducted over the Treaty house, with its interesting little museum and its gallery of Empire builders and their courageous wives, the latter pictured with coiffures that surpass in elegance oven the upswept curls and pompadour rolls of many of the young women who stand before them to-day. Descendants of the old families connected with the settlement frequently find their way to Waitangi. Among visitors of recent weeks was a greatgranddaughter of James Busby, the first resident of Treaty House, who spent some time searching the vicinity for the hollowed rock known to her family as "Grannie's Armchair." On the day of the signing of the Treaty, it is told, an old Maori chief, w ho had been seated on this rock, darted forwatd as Captain Hobson stepped into the boat and exclaimed: “Alas! An old man. He'll soon be dead.” This prophecy was fulfilled—three weeks later Hobson suffered a stroke and died.

One dav recently, the curator, entering the Whare Ranunga. the wonder-fully-carved Maori meeting-house in the grounds, found the descendants of the late much-loved Tau Henare, originator of the idea of the Whare Ranunga, as a gift from the Maori people, grouped about his photograph in correct family sequence, paying silent, tribute to their much-revered relative.