Anniversary Day.

Manawatu Herald, 20 September 1894, Page 3

Anniversary Day.

The Joint Committee appointed to consider the proper date for the colony's anniversary, reports that Captain Wm. Hobson, LieutenantGovernor, arrived at the Bay of Islands on the 29th January, 1840, and on the following day, at Kororareka; read Her Majesty's Commission extending the boundaries of New South Wales so as to include New Zealand, to a public meeting of residents. Having also r«ad his commission as Lieutenant* Governor, he proclaimed that he had that day entered upon his duties. Tht flag was then saluted by H.M.S. Herald, and the official formality of the foundation of the colony was completed. The first official celebration of this event took place at Auckland on the 29th January, 1842. In the Gazette of 27 th January, 1842, it was declared that Saturday, the 29th, was proclaimed a public holiday, but as the anniversary would have fallen on a Sunday *i the Committee considers this was the cause of the change of date. In the New Zealand Herald of 27th January, 1842, there is an advertisement of a regatta to be held on the 29th, "in honour of His Excellency's arrival in the colony." No further official notification appeared in the Gazette till 1847, when the 29th was announced as a general holiday • aft the seventh anniversary of the colony. The date of the first notification was thus copied apparently without proper consideration, and . the error remains unrectified. The Committee is therefore of opinion that the anniversary of the foundation of the colony should be celebrated as a general holiday on the 80th January, instead of the 29th, ; as a£ present, so that it may be in accord with the historical fact.