Mr. William Hall, of Yaldhurst, was born at Coventry, Warwickshire, England, in 1829. With his father, Mr. William Jabez Hall, he obtained, under the auspices of the New Zealand Company, a free passage in the ship “London,” and arrived in Wellington on the 1st of May, 1842. At that time no roads had been formed, the colonists were without agricultural implements, no employment was obtainable, and the nearest bank was the Bank of Australasia in Sydney. At first Mr. Hall's family went into the Company's crowded depot on Thorndon Flat, where they suffered many discomforts. On removing to Wadestown, they had to give six shillings a week for a house, the roof of which let in the sunshine and the rain. They started sawing in the bush, but finding this unprofitable, they leased a piece of land from Captain Daniels, at a peppercorn rent for fourteen years. When almost face to face with absolute starvation, they were helped by Colonel Wakefield and other kind friends. At the same time Mr. Hall, senior, became seriously ill, but was pulled through by Dr. Featherston. The boys cleared the bush, sowed wheat by hand, and also put in potatoes and turnips. While doing this they worked so late that they had to use firebrands to light them on their way home. A change for the better appeared when they were offered employment on a vessel in the stocks at Wellington; she was called the “Indemnity,” and was owned by Mr. Matheson. At this time a fire burned down the greater part of Wellington, and there was trouble with the Maoris. In this connection Mr. William Hall enlisted under Sir Charles Clifford, and, with six others, volunteered to go to Johnsonville. The volunteers were supplied with old muskets, and sixty rounds of ball cartridge. For three days and nights they were camped in a hut, awaiting the attack of the Maoris, and during that time they were entirely without provisions. Reinforcements arrived just in time to save them. After that the father and son worked in erecting a flour mill, for a joint wage of £2 a week; the legal tender was then known as “shin plasters,” and the Government's debentures of £1. The Halls also engaged in road making, but the New Zealand Company paid them for only half time. A severe earthquake having levelled every building in Wellington, the Hall family returned to the bush, and gathered in their first crop, which amounted in all to 100 bushels of wheat. This they had to carry on their backs to town. Mr. W. Hall then engaged in building a sawmill for Mr. Joseph Early, and was offered constant employment at from 2s 6d to 3s a day. On the strength of this engagement he got married. He afterwards removed to the Hutt, where he started a wheelwright's business, in conjunction with his brother Joseph, and also engaged in house building. This they carried on for over seven years, when the district experienced a flood, which resulted in the loss of several lives. Mr. Hall then removed to Canterbury, and was employed at Kaiapoi as a wheel-wright for seven years. In 1860 he settled at Yaldhurst, and with his brother-in-law, took up fifty acres of Government land, which he has since increased to 200 acres. He worked at his trade until the place was paid for and erected flax mills at Tai Tapu and Selwyn. Mr. Hall was a member of the first Yaldhurst school committee. He was brought up as a Wesleyan, but since the erection of the barracks in Christchurch, he has been a strong supporter of the Salvation Army. Mr. Hall married Miss Elizabeth Dodge, who arrived in Wellington in 1841, and there is a family of five sons and one daughter.

Mr. James Sinclair was one of the first settlers at Yaldhurst, and was afterwards, for many years, in the Tai Tapu district. He was born in Caithness, Scotland, in 1836, and was trained to a farming life on the Dunbeath estate, of which his father was the manager for half a century. In 1858 he arrived at Lyttelton by the ship “Indiana,” and worked in the bush at Ohoka for three months. He was then engaged by Archdeacon Wilson, on his farm at Heathcote, and in 1859 went to Yaldhurst, and worked on the Broomfield estate for a year. Mr. Sinclair joined in the “rush” to the Otago goldfields, and was at Gabriel's Gully for a year. On returning to page 717 Canterbury, he married Miss Annie Mackay, in 1862, and took up land at Yaldhurst, where he farmed until 1878, when he sold his property, and removed to Tai Tapu, where he bought a farm, which he successfully worked for twenty-four years. In 1902 he sold out, and has since then lived in retirement, at Musgrove House, Macaulay Street, Addington. Mr. Sinchair was eight years a member of the Templeton Road Board, and while residing at Yaldhurst served on the local school committee, and on the cemetery and the domain beards. He was for thirteen years continuously on the Lincoln Road Board, and was for many years on the school committee at Tai Tapu. Mr. Sinclair has a family of five sons and two daughters. The eldest son is a farmer at Oamaru, the second a Methodist minister in Dunedin, the third is headmaster of the Model School, at the Christchurch Normal School, and the two younger sons have been settled by their father on a farm at Studholme.