Growing up
M
y great-grandfather Henry Douglas Morpeth Haszard was born on 16 January 1862 at Mangonui, Northland, the eldest surviving son of Moore Hunter Morpeth and her husband, Robert Haszard, a farmer and former goldminer. His parents had both arrived in Auckland from Prince Edward Island, Canada in 1858. His great-grandfather Thomas Haszard had been one of the original eight who in 1639 had purchased 800,000 acres of South Rhode Island and founded the town of Newport (New England, USA).
Harry, as he was commonly known, was educated at the Otamatea School at Tanoa on the Kaipara Harbour (where his father had become the headmaster), at Paparoa School, and at Auckland College and Grammar School. After passing the civil service entrance examination he joined the Survey Department as a cadet in 1880. He was trained by C. F. R. von Neumann in the Hokianga district and qualified as an authorised surveyor in 1883.
Working life
I
n August 1887 Harry was invited by the assistant surveyor-general, S. P. Smith, to join the New Zealand party which was going to the Kermadec Islands to confirm New Zealand possession and to undertake a survey. A few months earlier, on 12 April 1887, he had married Alice Elizabeth Vaughan Wily, at Mauku. The first of their five children was born at Auckland in January 1888.
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My grandfather Dick with my great-grandfather Henry Morpeth Haszard and my aunt Charente at their first house in Paparata