AN OLD VETERAN.
SERGEANT-MAJOR BEAZAR. Remarkably active for his 91 years, and with an unmistakably military bearing, SergeanWVlajor E. Beazar, the first instructor of the Palmerston North Volunteer Rifles on their formation in 1879, travelled from Wellington yesterday to be present at the celebrations of the sQth anniversary of the corps last evening. It will be 75 years in January since the Sergeant-Major joined the Imperial Army, having enlisted in London. and he is one of the two survivors in New Zealand of the famous 57th Regiment (The “Diehards”). He first saw service at Malta in 1855, going to the Crimea very shortly afterwards. In 1857 Sergeant-Major Beazar was transferred back to Malta and from there to India, leaving for New Zealand in 1861. His regiment landed in Auckland and went to the seat of the Maori War at Waitara. For many years after the Maori rising, the Sergeant-Major was an instructor to the Feilding, Marton and Palmerston North Rifle Volunteers, and a great pleasure to him is to recollect incidents of the volunteer days and to meet any of his trainees and chat over old times. The years have not pressed too heavily on the Sergeant-Major and has activity could well be the envy of many a man 30 years his junior. The only trouble the old veteran has is a slight deafness. He will be 92 in February next. The other New Zealand survivor of the 57th Regiment is Private Michael Gill, who, in his 93rd year, is an inmate of the Park Hill Home, Waipukurau. The pair met in December last, when the Sergeant-Major visited his old companion and renewed their friendship of many years’ standing.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MS19290917.2.62
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Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 247, 17 September 1929, Page 7
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279AN OLD VETERAN. Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 247, 17 September 1929, Page 7
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