Histories

Dungog Chronicle 24 May 1932

WOULD BE A RISK.

The oldest soldier in the Common wealth, still genially happy with a keen humor, Charles Wooster would like to link arms with Mrs Maria Ryan, the centenarian, who will cross the Bridge at the official openings 'But,' he says, with a gay twinkle in his eye, 'I had better not, for, you see, it is Leap Year. So it's off.' At the age of 12 Mr. Wooster was a sailor in the Mediterranean, and in 1857-8, the time of the big famine in. Ireland, he was helping to run Russian grain to the stricken country. In 1863 he left London as chief officer of the Helvel lyn, and arrived in Auckland with the first and only consignment of live rabbits ever to leave Britain. Leaving the sea for good, with the exception of a short period of trading on the coast of New South Wales, in later years, Mr. Wooster plunged into the Maori war, with the flying column under Colonel Hautain.