GOLDEN WEDDING

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 858, 30 December 1929, Page 14

GOLDEN WEDDING

NORTHCOTE RESIDENTS TO CELEBRATE MR. AND MRS. G. W. WHITCOMBE An active interest in the everyday affairs of life is still taken by Mr. and Mrs. George William Whitcombe, of Tennyson Street, Northcote, who will celebrate their golden wedding tomorrow. Incidentally, Mrs. Whitcombe will celebrate her seventieth birthday on the same day, while her husband will be 72 on New Year’s Day. , Mrs. Whitcombe mused when she declared that her husband, in comparison with herself, was still quite a “new chum.” The second daughter of Mr. J. Moore, of County Antrim, Ireland, she arrived in Auckland with her parents by the ship Ida Zeigler in 1564. Mr. Whitcombe claims Gloucestershire as his native county. He arrived in New Zealand by the ship Waitangi in 1874, and soon afterward was apprenticed as a baker to the late Mr. P. Crowe, whose place of business was in Hobson Street. Mr. and Mrs. Whitcombe were married on December 31. 1879, by the Rev. John Nixon, who was then minister of the Franklin Road Methodist Church.

Soon after their marriage Mr. Whitcombe entered into business as a master baker, his bakehouse being in Ponsonby Road. This venture lasted for six years, after which the Whitcombe family removed to what was then known as John Lundon’s Village Settlement, at Herekino, North Auckland. “Pit-sawing and roadmaking were the main diversions, and kept all the menfolk well occupied.” said Mrs. Whitcombe. “It was a hard life for both men and women alike, albeit a healthy one.” RETURNED TO AUCKLAND After two years they returned to Auckland, where Mr. Whitcombe took over a business in College Hill. Over *3.0 years ago he entered the employment of Messrs. Walter Buchanan, Ltd.. and he was for many years the sec-

retary of the Auckland Operative Bakers’ Union. The family removed to Northcote in 1912. Mr. and Mrs. Whitcombe, who have now resided on Sulphur Works Beach for 19 years, have a family of four sons and seven daughters, all of whom will be present at the celebration of the golden wedding, which is to take place in the Masonic Hall tomorrow evening. They are:—Messrs. W. G. Whitcombe, E. A. Whitcombe, N. J. Whitcombe, all of Northcote; Mr. T. R. Whitcombe, of Drury; and Mesdames A. R. Nelson, of Northcote; W. Mclsaacs, of Birkenhead; P. Harwood, of Thames; W. J. Neville, of Northcote; G. Reid, of Waiotira; T. H. Edmondson, of Northcote; and Miss Winifred Whitcombe, of Northcote. There are 30 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. -