OBITUARY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 50, 15 October 1914, Page 6

OBITUARY.

WALTER SYMES, EX-M.P,

[Pbe Pbesb Association.] Hamilton, October 1

The death occurred at the Waikato Hospital last night of Mr Wait** Symes, aged sixty-three, ex-member for Egmont. Mr Symes had been an inmate for six weeks with an internal trouble. He was preparing to leave ten days ago when he had a relapse which resulted fatally as above stated.

(The late Mr Walter Symes has many friends in this district which he represented in Parliament for several years. Much sympathy will be extended to Mrs Symes in her bereavement. The late Walter Symes was first returned to the Parliament of New Zealand as member for the old Egmont seat (in which Stratford was then included) in the year 189 G and re-elect-ed for the same constituency at the general election of 1899. In 1902, after the alterations of boundaries ] ie stood for Patea (of which Stratford was still the principal town), for which seat he was elected, and reelected at the general election of 1905. At the election in November, 1908 for the newly-created Stratford seat, after a strenuous battle, Mr Symes was defeated by the present sitting member/Mr J. B. Hine. The late Mr Symes was born in Somersetshire, England, in 1852. While _ an infant he was brought to Taranaki by his parents and received part of his education at Nelson and Wanganu*. As a youth he was articled to a lawyer who however died without leaving a will and he was therefore unable to get his articles assigned. Mr Symes then took up auctioneering, and was in business for about four years in Wanganui and Palmerston North. Then he bought a sheep run on D'Urville Island, but after five years returned to Taranaki and settled down to farming at Waverley. While a resident in that district he became interested in local politics, and was for some years a member and eventually chairman of the Wairoa Road Board. He was also elected to the Patea County Council, of which he was chairman for nine years. In the year 1890, the late Mr Symes acquired interests in the Stratford district, and was a member of the Stratford County Council for six years. He took up land at Toko in 1890, and five years later settled there, where he farmed until 1900, when he sold <*it and took up his residence in the borough of Stratford, where he was engaged in insurance and general agency work. Tbe late Mr Symes married a daughter of the late John Treweek, an old colonist who came to New Zealand in 1840 and died at, Kakariki, .at ike age of eighty-four. 'Mr Walter Symes leaves a widow and one ison, Mr Bradlaugh Symes.