Old Taranaki.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 18, 22 January 1904, Page 4

Old Taranaki.

AN INTERESTING REMINISCENCE. The visit to New Zealand of Mr A. C. S. Manners, after whose father, Colonel Manners, one of Wellington's busiest thoroujjlrfufes takes its name revives an interestiing page of the early history of Taranaki, observes the New Zealand Times. This, as will 'be seen, is of speciail interest at present, when' promises of definite steps are Ijeirfe made as to the development of the ironsand deposits in that district, opening the way to an industry, that will surely play mi important part in the future commercial progress of New Zealand. Mr Manners, on his mother's side, is a grandson of the lute Mr Frederic Alonzo Carrington, who was selected by the Plymouth Company to proceed to New Zealand us its iihkf la xjliooye rj site l',or the settlement proposed to Lie formed in New ilealand. He arrived off Taranaki on February 12, 1841, with his family and a survey party. After felling bush under great dillicultiei the township ai New Plymouth was laid out under Mr Carringion's supervision. In 1843, he returned to England, and found that the Plymouth Company had born absorbed in the New Zealand Company. He took: back with him a quantity of Taranaki ironsand (the first that left the colony), and after an analysis had a bar of cast-iron made therefrom. He entered into a lengthy correspondence with the Colonial Office,, endeavouring to obtain a grant of the beach along the shores of Taranaki, but met with a refusal. Lord Grey oflered to give Mr Currington a letter to the Governor of New Zealand, which on his arrival there would ensure a grant of the beach being given him. As it would have taken too long in those days to have visited Now Zealand and return Home again with the desired information, the matter was for some time abandoned. The bar of iron and some of the iixiiiKund were exhibited l»y Mr Carrington at the exhibition in London in 1851, when he called the attention of the MuslerGeneral of the Ordnance Department (Sir H. de la Heche) to it. fourteen years later Mr Carring'ton revisited New Zealand, his object beinft the utilisation of the ironsand and other matters in connection with the district, 'but the North Island was then in a very unsettled state owing to hostilities with the natives. In 1.562 he was appointed Government Engineering Surveyor for Taranaki ;u..l in that connection joined' with the military authorities in roading the district. He was elected .Superintendent of the district in 186!), and held that position until 187(1, when Provincial Governments \*3flj*nbolished. He was then elected to the House of Representatives, but retired from politics in 1880. He crowned his work as the greatest man ever connected with Taranaki by laying the first stone of the present breakwater on February 7, 18(31,