COLONIALS IN ENGLAND.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 462, 19 June 1909, Page 3

COLONIALS IN ENGLAND.

A MEETING OF MANAWATU SETTEERS IN EONDON.

On Thursday, April, 29, for the day, there met, by appointment, in the old town of Shrewsbury, three colonials from the Manawatu. Mr Thomas Westwood, storekeeper, flaxmiller, ex-councillor and ex-Mayor of Foxton; Mr Geo. Grindley, formally Methodist minister of Foxton, and Mr S. Barnett, also ex-Methodist minister of Foxton. Mr Edwin Kirby, farmer, of Shannon, would'have made a fourth, but for distance, he having located in rural Kent.

Six very pleasant hours were spent in comparing notes, and reviving old memories of persons, places and experiences, Mr Westwood has been two years in England with his family, which includes his two prodigious children. Ruby, aged 15, weighs 17 stone 4-lbs, and Wilfred, n, weighing 21 stone i2lbs. They have worked through the Old Country on show, from Eohdon (Olympia) to Scotland. Very many thousands have been attracted to see them, and good use has been made of the opportunity to extol NeW Zealand .products generally—children, climate, butter and meat. Mr Westwood proposed leaving England shortly, touring South Africa, thus workinghiS/Way back

to New Zealand. Mr Grind ley, after leaving Foxluu iu 1 Sy3, was stationed at Halcombe. Here his health breaking, he returned to England, settling in Shropshire, at Oswestry, and Ellesmere. He has a fruit and fowl farm, is married and has one child. He is turning his thoughts New Zealaudward. Mr Barnett related how, from Foxton, in 1898, he had successively laboured in Waihi, Canterbury, and Pahiatua. Then voluntarily retiring and entering secular life, he had returned, after fourteen years’ absence, to England. Resting ‘and recuperating he had made a study of occultism, and as a lecturer on psychic problems and philosophy, he had travelled throughout England and Scotland. He was about to sail for South Africa on a lecturing tour, then on to New Zealand to pick up the threads of colonial life.

A noted psychic family he had met in Manchester happen to be relatives of Mr F. Venn, of Makerua.

The fourth gentleman of the party was made up by Mr J. W. Nowell, manager of the Roder Estate, the Co-operative Wholesale Society’s Shropshire model fruit farm. There are over seven acres under glass. Mr Nowell thinks, after his term is up, to emigrate to New Zealand, and take up scientific fruit farming. Not only do the restless souls of England’s teeming millions cast longing eyes on “God’s Own Country,” but antipodean visitors to England soon tire and turn their steps to the ship that will again bring them in sight of the land of progressive freedom.

S. BARNETT,