88TH BIRTHDAY

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 188, 6 May 1940, Page 5

88TH BIRTHDAY

Mr. W. T. Benefield, Of Wanganui 66 YEARS IN CITY Dominion Special Service. AVANGANUI, Alay 5. Air. IV. T. Benefield, who is 88 years of age today, has spent 60 years in Wanganui. In his retiring years Air. Benefield enjoys good health and spends liis leisure hours in his garden at his home in Smithfield Road. Mr. Benefield was born in Canterbury, Kent, and educated at Burnham School. At an early age he was engaged in nursery work m Dartford, where he married Miss E. Martin, Dartford. The New Zealand Government advertised for immigrants, and Air. and Airs. Benefield, who had one son, 18 months old, decided to make a home for themselves in a new country. They joined the New Zealand Shipping Company’s sailing ship Waikato on her maiden voyage. The AVaikato sailed along the wot coast of the South Island to AA’elliugton. then known as Port Nicholson.

The immigrants were told that Wanganui was known as the garden of New Zealand. “Being a gardener, this attracted my attention,” said Mr. Benefield. Thirty-six of their shipmates ajso decided to travel to Wanganui, but there was no railway, and the first, obstacle was to find a means of transport. The immigrants met a seaman from a small vessel then engaged in carrying cattle from AVanganui to the West Coast and bringing back coal. The captain agreed to take them to Wanganui in tlie hold in which cattle were shipped. Tlie trip from Wellington to AVanganui occupied only one night, and the immigrants landed at Taylor and Watt’s wharf. Cattle in those days were loaded on the Putiki side of the river.