William Chidley Reynolds, Jnr

William was born in Cornwall and preceded his family to New Zealand on the ship 'Percy' in 1866. He joined the 3rd Waikato Militia, aged 22 and stood 6 foot tall. He was a substitute soldier on 26 May 1866 in Cambridge, taking on his land grant numbers 110 & pt 109 at Pukeroro and one acre 320 in Cambridge East. (He added numbers 101 and 103 to his land - which is now part of St Peters School.) Young William started farming - burning and ploughing. A year later he tried his luck at Thames, gold mining. In 1868 his parents, together with his three brothers John, Henry and Richard and sister Emily, arrived on the ship 'Maori'. When the Rev John Law died in 1908, the Waikato Independent newspaper stated that on arriving in the colony in 1868 he was at once despatched to Cambridge. "Mr Law witnessed all the hard work that goes to the creation of pasture and farm land out of the native wilderness, and he witnessed it at close quarters, for he shared bachelor quarters with the late William Reynolds, eldest brother of Henry Reynolds, of [Anchor] butter fame, and Richard Reynolds, now of 'Trecarne', Pukekura." On the Cambridge rates assessment list for 1869-70 William paid 2 pence an acre on 630 acres - totalling five pounds and five shillings. William Jnr died after a horse fell on him, 6 January 1872. He was 29 years old and is buried at the Cambridge Cemetery at Hautapu. His father, who was already established in farming, inherited his Pukeroro land. He is noted in 1872 on a farm map drawn by Charles Chitty in a report on the district to the Armed Constabulary Commissioner's Office. William Reynolds Snr later acquired land across the river at Pukerimu and in 1872 he bought 1600 acres around Pukekura. Source: http://cambridgemuseum.org.nz/Biographies/biosQ&R.htm#117