AN EX-HAMILTONIAN.

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17687, 16 April 1929, Page 8

AN EX-HAMILTONIAN.

tom McWilliams. BROTHER AT FRANKTON. STAUNCH AND STUDIOUS FELLOW. It is generally supposed that Mr T. H. McWilliams has no relatives in this country other than an uncle and aunt residing in Auckland. This is entirely erroneous. At Frankton he has a brother, Mr Charles Bailey McWilliams, and he also has a sister, Mrs Roy Murdoch, who resides in the Kawakawa district, North Auckland. Owing to the death of their parents when quite young, the family became scattered and seldom saw or communicated with each other. The two boys, as infants at Thames, where they received their schooling, somehow got their Christian names mixed, and Tom became known as Charles and Charles as Tom. In fact it was not until a comparatively short time ago, when Tom required his birth certificate for some purpose, that he discovered he was really Tom and not Charles. His name is also McWilliams and not McWilliam as generally printed'.

When quite young, the present Southern Cross hero worked for a time on his uncle's farm at Eureka. Later he became employed at Grigg’a bakehouse.

Fascinated By Wireless. His brother states that Tom "was always a steady, studiously-inclined boy. Wireless had a special fascination for him as a youngster and he was for ever dabbling in it and studying it up. He was also always keenly interested in military work and while in Hamilton was a sergeant-major in the Senior Cadets. He left Hamilton with the 10th Reinforcement and while in camp acquired corporal's stripes. He ' returned wounded about two and a-half years later with a shrapnel wound in his foot. For a time after his return he was an inmate of the Waikato Hospital, and it was whilst in bed there that he took up the serious study of wireless with a view to making it his profession.

On receiving his discharge from hospital his brother did not hear from him for 10 years, until he read that he had become a member of the Southern Cross crew. Charles at that time believed his brother to be in San Francisco.

Charles, who is employed at Turner’s Butchery, Frankton, resembles his brother a good deal facially, though somewhat shorter and slighter than the Southern Cross hero. While he does not remember much about their childhood together, he'says his brother was always a staunch sort of chap and full of fun. Only as recently as three weeks ago Charles (who, by the way, is still generally known as Tom) received a telegram from Base Records asking for the present address of “12/3765, Charles Harrison McWilliams, for whom a valuable package is held." Apparently Base Records did not connect the addressee with the member of the Southern Cross crew of that name.