The Member for Pahiatua.

Manawatu Herald, 4 August 1904, Page 2

The Member for Pahiatua.

Mr Hawkins was born some 38 years ago in New South Wales, and has spent many years of his life in New Zealand. To-day (says an exchange) he is a successful newspaper proprietor and politician; there was a time when he was unemployed, and he worked with the pick and shovel as a member of a co-operative gang. This incident in his life, which showed his independent spirit, he is rather proud of. Of athletic build and strong constitution, Mr Hawkins in the days of a decade ago played a more than usually prominent part on the football and cricket ground. He won his “ rep. 11 cap in both games, and was a popular captain of both cricket and football teams in Hawke's Bay, and is still remembered in Napier and Woodville. In those days Mr Hawkins was recognised as second only to the renowned Fowke as a wicket-keeper, and in 1894 or thereabouts he was selected as understudy to Fowke for the position behind the sticks for the colony’s team.

It is interesting, in considering the prominent part that the new member for Pahiatua has played in recent years as a leader of the Prohibition party, to recall two incidents in his life in Hawke’s Bay. When in Napier he was on the clerical staff of a firm of wine and spirit merchants (Messrs Robjohns, Hindmarsh and Co.), and subsequently, when he had established himself as an auctioneer in Dannevirke, he married the daughter of Mr Allardice, a hotelkeeper. His attitude on the temperance question, however, is one not taken up in recent times. As a cricketer and footballer he was noted as an advocate of temperance ideas. Mr Hawkins was also in business as an auctioneer in Woodville. Subsequently, when his brother-in-law, the late Mr Alex. Baillie (who had also married a Miss Allardice) became the editor of the Pahiatua “ Herald,” Mr Hawkins joined the paper, which he has edited since Mr Baillie’s death. It is only within the past year that Mr Hawkins has become prominent as a public speaker, he having made some exceptionally vigorous speeches on Prohibition and anti-Seddonism in Palmerston North, Wellington, and Newtown under the auspices of the New Zealand Alliance,