A PUBLIC BENEFACTOR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 164, 10 January 1914, Page 4

A PUBLIC BENEFACTOR.

Mr. Robert Mair, who lias so generously presented the northern toxvn of Wlningarei with a ■beautiful xvaterside pui'lc of natix'e basli, is a very old native-born colonist, a member of a line family which did milch in its day to win Xew Zealand to civilisation and peace (pays the Lyttelton Times). He is the eldest son of Mr. Gilbert Mair, one of the pioneers of the Far North, and his two brothers, Major William Mair and Captain Gilbert Mair, X.Z.C., distinguished themselves in the Maori wars. The father was a Scottish settler who made his home at Wahapu, in the Hay of Islands, in the twenties of last century. He xvas a shipbuilder by trade, and he built many small vessels for the coasting business, and was himself master of the first mission schooner, the little Columbine, in which the famous Williams brothers and other early missionaries voyaged along the shores of Xew Zealand, carrying the message of Christianity to the heathen tribes. Gilbert Mair xvas a contemporary of many celebrated pioneers, and while at Wahapu he made the acquaintance of Captain Peter Dillon, the Irish sailor who discovered the remains of La l'erouse's longlost expedition. It xvas at Wahapu, then a great resort for traders and whalers, that the Mair sons were brought up, but the family settled later at W'liangarei. Mr. Uobert Mair is one of the very last of the nation-making white stock in the north. lie is a thorough patriot, xvith a great and abiding faith in the future of the country which he has seen emerge from savagery, and it i,t characteristic of his love for his district that he should not have waited until death deprived him of the satisfaction of seeing' his fellows gladdened and benefited by his gift. The fashion which Sir George Grey and Sir John Logan Campbell set of making generous presents to the public during- life-time , is, happily, finding numerous imitators ill N'ew Zealand.