Bill Crooks

William Crooks (12 April 1908 – December 1986), known as Bill Crooks was manager of Eastwoodhill Arboretum, Ngatapa, Gisborne, from 1967-1974. For the previous forty years he was the assistant of William Douglas Cook, founder of the arboretum.

Bill Crooks was born in Mutford, Lowestoft, Suffolk, England as the son of James and Jane Elizabeth Crooks (née Hale). He had six brothers and sisters. His father was a fisherman on a smack. During World War I his father was appointed to the Trawling Reserve of Britain's seagoing defences. He won a Distinguished Service Medal for sinking a German submarine by ramming it with his ship and his name was honoured in Lowestoft as "one of the bravest fishermen of the fleet". He died shortly after the war, on 27 December 1919 from a pneumonia, that was aggravated by wartime injuries.

In New Zealand, Edward Newman, Member of Parliament, encouraged the establishment of the "New Zealand Sheep Owners Acknowledgement of Debt to British Seamen Fund", to support relatives of British seamen that died during the war. The Crooks family was among the dependants of the Fund. The Fund bought Flock House, with the intention to bring sons of seamen to New Zealand, offer them the opportunity to learn farming skills, and place them on farms around New Zealand. Bill Crooks, then 16 years old, was among the first to apply. With his 15-year-old sister Gertrude, he sailed aboard the SS Remuera to New Zealand. Their mother's parting instruction to Bill was "look after your sister!". They disembarked on 22 May 1924. Gertie headed into domestic service, Bill to Flock House, "and that was the last they saw of each other for about the next thirty years".

After a year at Flock House, Bill found a job at a station at Tahunga, in the headwaters of the Hangaroa River, west of Gisborne. He worked there for a year. "It is also understood by his family that he spent some time working at Whakapunake Station, near Tiniroto.

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