William Hayward 1852 - 1932

William Hayward was the sixth born of the nine children of William Watts Hayward (1816-92) and his wife Sarah Jane (nee Dunford) (1820-1911).He had seven sisters, five of whom died before reaching adulthood, and one brother who only survived for five days. In fact William and his youngest sister Flora were the only members of the family to marry and produce children of their own.

William was born at Lower Bowden Farm the family dairy farm a few kilometres from the village of Henstridge in Somerset, England. His father William Watts Hayward was not only a yeoman farmer, he was also a member of the Sherborne troop of the Dorset Yeomanry Cavalry for some 25 years. For 13 years he held the position of quartermaster. According to his obituary "his fine soldierly and commanding appearance made him an acquisition to his company." He was a staunch churchgoer and a Conservative. After retirement he lived at Eastover House, Brister End in the village of Yetminster, Dorset.

William's mother Sarah Jane was the oldest of nine children of John and Sarah Dunford. She was born at Whitfield Farm near the village of Lillington about three kilometres north east of Yetminster. In her younger days Sarah underwent an operation which weakened her back and for the last 18 years of her life she was confined to bed at the home of her daughter Flora Steeds in Dorchester. Sarah died on 21 November 1911 and is buried in the churchyard of St Andrews Anglican church in Yetminster.

In 1883, William age 29, left the Dorset countryside and travelled to the United States where he spent some time with his cousins in Pine Island, Minnesota, some of whom had been living there since 1849. An item in the Pine Island Record for 1 June 1883 notes his presence in the town. A story told by his son William Gilbert Hayward (1900 - 76) is that on leaving England and hearing stories of the lawlessness of the American West he bought a five-shot revolver for protection. Apparently on arrival in Boston he found possession of such a weapon to be an offence. He stowed the pistol in his trunk and it stayed there. Some 70 years later it was still in the possession of his son and his grandson Ken Hayward used to play with it (minus the firing pin) in backyard games of cowboys and Indians in the 1950s. It is not known when William travelled on across America but it is likely that he boarded a ship for New Zealand in San Francisco. He arrived in New Zealand, probably late in 1885 and spent some time with his cousin Harry Miles Hayward of Melrose, Wellington, a well known importer and agent for several British hardware companies, who had arrived in New Zealand in 1877.

Later William Hayward bought a block of land in the Mangaone valley, a few kilometres inland from Te Horo, clearing the bush himself over a period of years. In 1893 he married Ellen Gilbert (1857 - 1948) who had migrated from England in 1887 and had worked for five years as a primary school teacher at Picton school in Marlborough. It is very likely that William and Ellen had met back in Yetminster where Ellen had been teaching for two years at the Girls and Infants school, a school where William's uncle Thomas had been a member of the controlling body of the school.

About 1898 William and Ellen moved to a new block of land at Hautere Cross.The 55 acre tract of totara-dominated bush had been sold at auction in the Exchange Loan and Mercantile auction rooms, Panama Street, Wellington on 22 March, 1892. It was part of the Otaki Block granted by the government of the day to the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company with the land to be sold to finance the building of the rail link from Wellington to Palmerston North. The auction notice made extravagant claims about the quality of the land .."the climate being superior to that of any other part of the Colony, the Tararua Ranges sheltering it and protecting it from the cold southerly winds prevailing elsewhere in winter; the grape, the olive and many subtropical fruits ripening in the open air.."

As well as developing the dairy farm from the virgin bush, William and Ellen also operated the Hautere Cross Post Office from a small room in their farmhouse. From 1901 William ( and later their son William Gilbert) was responsible for delivering the mail on horseback three times a week to the isolated sawmilling settlements and struggling dairy farms of the Otaki Gorge. A letter of thanks from the Postmaster-General dated 2 February 1925 records his resignation from this position after 25 years of service. Ellen was an occasional teacher at Te Horo school and also taught Sunday School and sewing in the district. Early records of the Te Horo creamery show that the Hayward farm was among the earliest suppliers of cream in 1894.

William and Ellen were elderly parents (he was 48 when William Gilber was born in 1900) and by 1912 William Gilbert had left school to take over the running of the farm. William continued to live in the original farmhouse until his death at Moutere Private Hospital in Otaki on 8 July 1932. His cause of death is recorded as hypostatic pneumonia. He was buried at Otaki cemetery next day.

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