OBITUARY

Taranaki Daily News, 3 December 1926, Page 9

OBITUARY

MRS. JOSEPH HAWKEN. The death has occurred of Mrs. J. Hawken, mother of the Hon. O. J. Hawken, Minister of Agriculture. The late Mrs. Hawken was born in 1840 in Devonshire and was a daughter of the late Mr. William Bayly. The late Mr. Daniel Bayly, one of Wanganui’s most respected early settlers, was a brother. Mrs. Hawken, who was only a year old when her parents reached New Plymouth in 1841 in the ship Amelia Thompson, went through all the troublous and alarming times which were experienced by the early Taranaki settlers. Mrs. Hawken was married to Mr. Joseph Hawken in New Plymouth in 1861 and the young couple proceeded to make a home on a farm which Mr. Hawken had acquired at Kakaramea. The only means of reaching there from New Plymouth at that time was by bullock dray. There were no bridges and practically no roads, so that a 60 miles’ journey through country occupied by unfriendly natives was then both arduous and dangerous. Mr. and Mrs. Hawken resided on their farm, 'Tairlea,” near Kakaramea, for 40 years, and then removed first to New Plymouth, and then to Wanganui. The late Mrs. Hawken was predeceased by her husband. She is survived by three sons, the Hon. O. J. Hawken, Mr. Cecil Hawken, of Hawera, and Mr. William Hawken, of Stratford, and six daughters, Mrs. P. Coverdale, Mrs. F. W. Wake, Mrs. Wilkin (of Auckland), Mrs. Gilbert Pearce, Mrs. France and Miss Hawken (of Auckland).