OBITUARY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 9, Issue 53, 19 March 1946, Page 4

OBITUARY

CAPTAIN E. V. SANDERSON

Readers of Peter the Whaler’s column in this paper must have been interested in the scheme initiated by the. character of ‘Old Saltwater’ whereby juvenile readers were enabled to secure one year’s subscription to the Forest and Bird Magazine published by the N.Z. Forest and Bird Protection Society. The founder of this splendid organisation was the late Captain E. V. Sanderson of whom the Wellington Evening Post in a special obituary notice gives the following high tribute: — The native genius of indigenous New Zealand, rather than the genius of pakeha development, was the special study of the late Captain Sanderson. He was dismayed at the pastoral intrusion of imported grasses in all those parts of New Zealand that were fitted only for the perpetuation of their first and best crop—the native forest. He saw—and had long foreseen —the erosive effects of deforestation, and of the vain efforts to turn steep land into pasture; and he sometimes asked whether the mismanaging white man should not, even now, hand New Zealand back to the Maori. He had been a fighter for the Empire in the Boer War and the first Great War, and was a man of experience and hard knocks—in fact a man of steel —but the idealist side of his nature found fruitful expression in his single minded devotion to the sacred cause of preserving what is left’ of the flora and fauna of Old New Zealand, among which the avifauna had his special affection, brilliantly illustrated in the many colour plates of the Forest and Bird Protection Society’s bulletins. About a generation ago he gave up his place in a thriving commercial business, and devoted himself to the cause of the birds and forest. Who in that cause has rendered greater service? As the driving force of the New Zealand Forest and Bird Protection Society, he was untiring and also relentless. It is only a tribute to such a man to say that he stepped on some toes. But always, even to his opponents, he must have appeared as the happy warrior, consecrated to a single goal —t© re-educate New Zealanders in the matter of care for indigenous wild life. This work of re-education, carried out in print and in many other ways for many years has still to show its harvest. Meanwhile the sower of the seed, full of years and honour, has been gathered to his fathers.

THE LATE MRS CROON The late Mrs Croon, who died some'weeks ago, was a well known Te Puke identity who has courageously lived on her own since the death of her husband some years ago. It is only fairly recently tha't she consented to go to her daughter at Whakatane, and that cheerful, independent characteristic has been typical of her whole life. Mrs Croon came to New Zealand when a child with her parents in the sailing ship “Lochave” in the year 1874. Taking 69 days from land to land, at that time it was the fastest trip made.

Later Mrs Croon returned to the Old Country, but soon returned to New Zealand, settling in Auckland, while the family came to Te Puke, where she resided for many years. Some months ago she joined her daughter, Mrs W. E. Bridger, of Whakatane, and was with her when she passed peacefully away.