A CENTENARIAN.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 394, 30 March 1937, Page 6

A CENTENARIAN.

Hastings Man Celebrates. Hastings, March 30. Even before midday gqests and welPvr’ishers began to arrive at the residence of Mr G. W. Lines, Hastings. who celebrated his hundredth birthday .yesterday. Although the party did not begin until the early evening, during the afternoonia stream of callers and guests, poured into Mt Lines’s home in .St. George’s Road with congratulations and congratulatory messages. Telegrams from the length and breadth of New Zealand poured in, including one from the Governor-General, Viscount Gialway, and many of Hawke’s Bay’s old identities sent messages o.f goodwill. Mr Lines. 1 seemed hardly to notice the strain of being the guest of honour, and Was extraordinarily bright and happy, chatting to his friends and talking of flays long gone by in cheerful vein. The reunion of the family' was as complete as possible, and relatives in Australia and England who were precluded from attending cabled their birthday greetings. Born at Salford, Bedfordshire, in he year of Queen Victoria’s accession, Mr Lines in 1855 went with his parents to Adelaide. He tried his luck on the Bendigo diggings, but failed to find gold. The opening of the Thames goldfield attracted him to New Zealand, but again fortune did not favour him. In 1870 he went to Havre's Bay, where he married, and built one of the first dwellings at Hastings, on a section he had purchased for £5. There are two sons, four daughters and 15 grandchildren.