OBITUARY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 7, 2 December 1916, Page 5

OBITUARY.

PETER HANCOCK, AETAT 63. Very many residents of the Strata ford district will regret to learn of the passing of an old and respected pioneer in the person of Mr Peter Hancock, who arrived in Stratford in 1880, and has lived here ever since. Deceased was a native of Mowcop, Staffordshire, England, being born on September 16th in the year 1853. He was married before coming out to New Zealand, having one son (the present Mr E. W. Hancock, of Cardiff) who at six months old with his parents came out in the Western Monarch, landing in Wellington in January, 1880. On the same ship were several other people subsequently well-known in the Stratford district, viz., the late Lieutenant-Colonel W. G. Malone, Hr W. Richards (Cardiff), Mr S. *H. James, and Mr H. N. Liardet. Not long after arriving in. the Colony, Mr Hancock came to Stratford, which lias always been his home. Mr Hancock took more than a. passing interest in local politics, and was one of the first members of the Stratford Town Board, and he was a hardworking and valued member of the A. and P. Association, having been honoured with a life membership. As foreman of the Stratford County Council for many years, he did a lot of the initial overseer’s work for that body. For the past year or two, Mr Hancock has not been in good health, being subject to sudden seizures that threatened to take him off at anytime, so that his death last night at the Stratford Hospital, was not unexpected. He was a man of steiling character, honorable and as straight as a die, and of an amiable disposition, and goes hence clothed in a mantle of his fellow-citizens’ highest respect and esteem, than which tbeie can be no nobler monument. His widow and six sous and six daughters are left to mourn the loss of a good father. The members of , the family are as follows; —Messrs K. W. Hancock (Cardiff), F. T, Hancock (Stratford), E. E. Hancock (Ngaere), H. Hancock (Tuna), S. F. Hancock (on active service at the front), and P. Hancock (Stratford), and Mesdames Lawrence (South Africa) W. Darrall (Morrinsville), J. Richards (Cardiff), W. Swindlehurst (Ngaere), P. Buss (Otaki), and Miss L.'Hancock (Stratford). The funeral has been arranged for Monday, the cortege leaving the deceased’s late residence m Juliet Street South, for the Stratford Cemetery, at 1 p.m.