OBITUARY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 1005, 21 November 1883, Page 2

OBITUARY.

The following obituary notice of one of the bast known officials in New South Wales, which we take from the Sydney Morning Herald, will be read with interest by former residents in that colony. We may mention that the subject of the memoir was the uncle of Mr W. H. Zouch, of this town; —Captain Henry Zouch, Superintendent of Police for the southern district, and Deputy-Inapector-Geheral of Police, died on Sunday evening, October 28. Captain Zouch was in the seventh-third year of his age, and his residence in this colony covers a long period of its history. He Was son of Colonel Zouch, commander of a British regiment during the American war of 1812-14. Colonel Zouch was for some time commandant at Quebec, in Canada, and it was there that the subject of this notice was born. When a young man ho went to England, and was educated in the military college at Sandhurst. In 1826 he obtained a commission as ensign in the Fourth or King’s Own Regiment, and after serving in several garrison towns in England he came out with a detachment of his regiment in 1834—a time when the convict ships were guarded hither by detachments of troops. The head quarters of the regiment were then in Sydney, and Mr Zouch held the rank of lieutenant Shortly after his arrival in that year he was appointed to the first division of the military mounted police stationed at Bathurst. There were then three divisions, one at Bathurst, one at Goulburn, and one at Maitland. About this time Lieutenant Zouch was.' despatched to the Bogan in search of - Mr Allan Cunningham, the wellknown botanist, who had lost himself from Sir Thomas Mitchell’s party while on a botanizing expedition. He succeeded in finding the remains of Mr Cunningham, the tablet to whose memory in the Botanic Gardens, Sydney, will be familiar to many colonists. On the Fourth Regiment leaving for India, Lieutenant Zouch sold out, and was for a considerable time out of the public service, being engaged in pastoral pursuits at Ashby, pear Bungendore, which property he sold some years ago. On the discovery of gold at Ophir, and the consequent rush of population tb that neighborhood he received an appointment as Gold Commissioner at the Turon,

where he remabicd until 1853. He was then appointed Superintendent of the Mounted Patrol for the Western roads, which post he held but a short time, being transferred to the position of Superintendent of the Mounted Patrol for the Southern roads. This position he held until the Mounted Patrol was a "algamated with the general police under the Police Act of 1862. At that time Lieutenant, or as he has long been universally known, Captain Zouch was appointed Superintendent of Police for the Southern district, which position he held up to the time of his death. Ha was the oldest of the Superintendents, and was some time ago appointed Deputy-Inspector General of Police. As such he several times during the absence of Mr Fosbery, fulfilled the duties of Inspector-General. The following particulars of the deceased are given in Ainsworth’s “ All Round the World”;—“The year 1835 was marked by the melancholy loss of Mr Cunningham, the colonial botanist. He was in company with Sir Thomas Mitchell on his way to explore the course of the River Darling. The expedition started from Buree on the 7th of April, and Mr Cunningham wandered from the party on the 17th of the same month near the head of the river Bogan. After an anxious search, continued for twelve days, during which the party halted, his horse was traced till found having still the saddle on and the bridle in its mouth. It appeared that Mr Cunningham, after losing his horse, had directed his own steps northward ; they were traced into the Bogan and westward along the bed of that river for twenty miles, and until they disappeared near a recent encampment of natives. There a small portion of the skirt of his coat was found, as also some fragments of a map which had been in his possession. There were two distinct tribes of natives in the Bogan, but the party was unable to learn anything of the unfortunate botanist’s fate from those with whom they had communicated. A party of police were sent ; from Sydney in December of the same year to endeavour to ascertain Mr Cunningham’s fate, and they 'learned from some natives that a white man had been murdered on the Bogan ; they then proceeded to a tribe of natives who were encamped on the borders of a small lake named Budda, and they made prisoners of three men who were pointed out as the murderers. The natives stated that about six moons since a white man came up to them on the Bogan, and made signs that he was hungry—that they gave him food ahd lodging for the night, but that the white man getting up frequently during the night excited suspicion, and they determined to destroy him, which determination they carried into effect the following morning. The officer in command of the police, Lieut. Zouch, then requested to be conducted to the spot on which the murder had taken place, which was at the distance of three days’ journey, at a place called Ourrindine, where they po'nted out some bones, which they asserted to be those of a white man, and near to the spot were found a piece of a coat, and also remairis of a j manilla bat. Being thus satisfied of the truth of the statement made by the natives and of the spot where the melancholy event had occurred, Lieut. Zouch had all the remains collected and deposited in the ground, after which he raised a small mound over them, and barked some of the nearest trees, as being the only means in his power to mark the spot. ”