FORTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 January 1922, Page 7

FORTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO.

INGLEWOOD’S ANNIVERSARY. (From Our Own Correspondent.) Forty-seven years ago to-morrow, January 22, 1875, the ceremony of naming Inglewood was performed. The late Mr. Arthur Standish, acting for the then superintendent of the province of Taranaki, the late Mr. F. A. Carrington, solemnly, though with some difficulty, broke a bottle of champagne and pronounced the name of the township to be “Inglewood.”

A very great quantity of water has flowed down the streams since that day, many have come and gone, or stayed and been buried here who knew not then that such a place existed, but there are still a few in the district who can remember the day, and the mild celebration on the occasion. Of those few one, Mr. Eri. Bennett, now of Bristol Road, deserves mention. One of those who came to New Zealand in the good ship Waikato, from Kent, England, he saw the very birth .of the Mba district; nay! he assisted very materially in is inception and afterwards for many years was one of the best known as well as of the most vitally useful individuals in the whole country. It is quite certain that this claim for the value of Mr. Bennett’s work as road foreman under the Taranaki County Council will be readily and willingly supported by every traveller on the Junction Road east of Inglewood to Tarata, and equally certain that all those who knew him as the at all times attentive foreman and capable road maintainer, will learn with regret that now he is forced by indifferent health to retire from the active control or overseeing of the roads, and is living at his homestead on Bristol Road.

Mr. Bennett never pretended to be a teacher of others, , but many must have learned valuable lessons from him in matters of road maintenance, and many more could have if they would. Also, yet others could reap hints of value by visiting his home where there are many varieties of trees and shrubs, New Zea" landers rubbing shoulders, one might almost say, with others reminiscent ol his own native Kent. He and Mrs. Bennett, another of Inglewood’s earliest and pluckiest pioneers, have ever been ardent planters of all sorts of flowers, .shrubs and treesj and now can show what few can, but many should be able to, a collection that would surely please any lover of arboriculture. A hedge of hazel nuts, bearing not empty shells, but good kernel-filled nuts, quinces and apples, are to be found there, as well as many varieties of native flora, soma quite rare, for all of which, and the lessons they can teach to those willing to learn, the credit is due to Mr. Bennett, who helped to fell the virgin bush where Inglewood now stands (only an average of ten rimu trees to the acre), and to his stanch help-mate, Mrs. Bennett, who justly claims to have bossed the first milk run (or walk it should be) that the Moa Block ever knew. Old hands, here and elsewhere, who knew Inglewood iff its infancy, will join the writer in good wishes to them on the occasion of this anniversary. CONVICTIONS FROM OBSERVATION. Our well-known fellow townsman, Mr. J. Harris, took a holiday a+ Christmas time, from which he returned, according to his own account, well satisfied that Taranaki, and, of course, Inglewood in Taranaki, is one of the chosen places of the earth, New Zealad itself being the choicest and Taranaki being the top notch of New Zealand. Mr. Harris, on his holiday, traversed a good deal of the Wa'irarapa, as well as visiting Wellington, and seeing a part of Hawke’s Bay, but he comes back revived by his holiday and more than ever convinced that Taranaki is where the best people ought to be, and eventually will dp. throughout Maoriland, and he says ingiqwood is not the worst place in Taranaki by a very long chalk.