Know your town – Early settlers

Thomas Owen Haycock JP 

 Tommy Haycock was born  in New Zealand in 1872 . In early years he worked on farms. He married Elizabeth Bicknell in 1894 at that time he was working for the Wairarapa Farmers Co-op Association (now the bottling plant building).  

He then went farming at Pirinoa and in 1896 in partnership with George Pain ran the Pirinoa Store. From  1896 to 1899 the business was known as Pain and Haycock and from 1899 to 1906  as Pain, Haycock and Kershaw. In 1904 he was instrumental in getting a telephone line from the Martinborough Store to the Pirinoa Store so Lower Valley had telephone before Martinborough ( Martinborough exchange opened in 1905). 

Tommy Haycock and Anthony Considine  worked with the Featherston County Council to get the  people of Waihinga and  Martinborough to amalgamate  to form enough people to vote for a Town Board and thus be able to govern themselves rather than be under the FCC. 

Tommy was the Martinborough Town Board’s first treasurer and in 1910 was made a JP.  He left the business to go farming in the Honeburn  (White rock area) .

In 1914 he was voted onto the Featherston County Council where he served until 1920. In late 1920 he canvased the country to have pest such as weasels, stoats, weed plants etc. removed so as to enhance  our native birds and trees. 

Tommy Haycock died  in Hamilton in March 1947

Mate Higginson