1896-1929
Born in Rodley, West Yorkshire on the first of October 1896, Horace immigrated to New Zealand with his mother when he was 3 years old. His father had gone out ahead of his family. When he enlisted for WW1 at Wellington in 1917, he was working as a Showcard Writer for Kirkcaldie and Stains and living with his parents in Udy Street, Petone.
Horace sailed with the 34th Reinforcements from Wellington on the 8th of February 1918, arriving in France in May. When the War ended on the 11th of November, many New Zealand soldiers had a long wait to return home for a few reasons and it wasn’t until the 21st of September that Horace finally boarded a ship. He had served one year and 225 days overseas.
On returning, he got a job at the Goldberg Advertising Agency in Wellington. In 1925, he went tramping with friends in the Tararuas to get some snow pictures. The group got lost and had to spend the night with just a blanket each and a fire. They made their way out at Kaitoke the next night, wet and very cold.
The bright lights and better opportunities in Australia called so on Armistice Day, 1927, he boarded the ‘Maunganui’ at Queen’s Wharf for Sydney. Unbeknown to his parents, he got his pilot’s license on the 28th of November 1928. On the 10th of February 1929, he was piloting a plane that crashed at Mascot Airport and was rushed to South Sydney Hospital where he died at 8.30 that night.
Horace’s body was returned to Wellington via the steamer ‘Marama’, one of two former hospital ships that brought our sick and wounded back to New Zealand during WW1. There’s a poignant article on Trove, the National Library of Australia website, detailing the departure of the ship with aero club aircraft escorting the ship and dropping a wreath for their friend. One of those on board one the aircraft was Horaces’s friend, colleague and flatmate, T Wishart who was one of the other two with him in the Tararuas in 1925.
His Will, made in 1918 while he was in training at Featherston Camp, left everything to his “beloved Mother”. He was buried on the 27th of February in Church of England 2, Plot 363 J.
An inquest, held 8 days after his death, found “Evidence given suggested that Appleyard was Indulging in a dangerous practice when his machine crashed.”. He was just 32 years old when he died.
Plot: *Ch Eng 2/J/363
By Denise Gore
Sources:
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZTR19280322.2.13.5
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZTR19280322.2.13.5
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19290212.2.103
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/230374093?searchTerm=%22horace%20appleyard%22
https://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE10532191
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/first-world-war-hospital-ships/movements-1915-19
https://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE52378766
(Back row): Corporal Dixon, Bombardier Taylor, Sergeant Fraser, Sergeant Knight, Sergeant Hardham VC, Corporal Holloway. Middle row: Corporal Ryan, Bombardier Pettet, Sergeant Major Finlay, QMS Cruickshank, Sergeant Appleyard, Bombardier Blake. Front row: Corporal Cairns, Bombardier Mole.
Image courtesy of Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections NZG-19101130-0032-01.
