Newspaper Letter 2023 – Airlie Mount and ancestry

Airlie Mount and ancestry

I read with interest the article by Rachel Wise (Hawke’s Bay Today, July 3) about the pending sale of “Airlie Mount’ in Waipukurau.

Alexander Jones was my great great grandfather, and researching family history shows that the name’s origin, although apparently “lost in the mists of time”, came in fact from the area of Airlie in Forfarshire, Scotland from which Alexander and his family emigrated.

As reported, he was engaged by H.R. Russell to run the blacksmithing part of the foundry business, which he subsequently took over and expanded to include the manufacture and sale of agricultural equipment – I suspect this became lucrative enough for him to afford to build such a dwelling!

Two of his sons joined the business, becoming A. Jones and Sons, which apparently, with the advent of electricity, expanded to Hastings, and into electrical engineering. One of his grandsons, William Hector Jones, set up the business Hector Jones Ltd which, under a string of different owners, is still operating today. Many of his descendants still live in the area, with names like Monteith, Parsons, Murphy, MacLean and Forrest being familiar to many.

M.M. Halliday
Hastings