Profile

HOPKINSON, Leslie Tairatu
(Service number 62872)

Leslie Hopkinson — (Courtesy of T Brosnahan )

Private Leslie Hopkinson, circa 1918 — (Courtesy of T Brosnahan )

Les and Thirza Hopkinson on their wedding day, 1919 — (Courtesy of T Brosnahan )

Picture postcard: Leslie Hopkinson (centre) — (Courtesy of P Wolfendon )

Picture postcard: verso — (Courtesy of P Wolfendon )

Aliases
First Rank	Private	Last Rank

Birth

Date	11/07/1899	Place of Birth	Temuka

Enlistment Information

Date	31 July 1917	Age	20 years
Address at Enlistment	Temuka
Occupation	Labourer
Previous Military Experience
Marital Status	Single. Then married Thirza Mary ASHER on 7 June 1919 at Grantham, Lancashire, England
Next of Kin	Hartley HOPKINSON (father), Temuka. Later Mrs T. M. HOPKINSON (wife), Grantham, Lancashire, England.
Religion	Church of England
Medical Information	Height 5 feet 5 inches. Weight 136 lbs. Chest measurement 31-34 inches. Complexion dark. Eyes grey. Hair black. Sight - both eyes 5/10. Hearing good. Colour vision normal. Limbs well formed. full and perfect movement of joints. Chest well formed. Heart and lungs normal. Teeth 'Yes'. No illnesses. free from hernia, varicocele, varicose veins, haemorrhoids, inveterate or contagious skin disease. Vaccinated. Good bodily and mental health. No slight defects. No fits.

Military Service

Served with	NZ Armed Forces	Served in	Army
Military District

Embarkation Information

Body on Embarkation	New Zealand Expeditionary Force
Unit, Squadron, or Ship	35th Reinforcements Specialist Company
Date	2 March 1918
Transport	Tofua
Embarked From	Wellington	Destination	Southampton, England

Other Units Served With
Last Unit Served With

Military Awards

Campaigns
Service Medals	British War Medal
Military Awards

Award Circumstances and Date

No information

Prisoner of War Information

Date of Capture
Where Captured and by Whom
Actions Prior to Capture
PoW Serial Number
PoW Camps
Days Interned
Liberation Date

Discharge

Date	23 November 1919	Reason	Termination of period of engagement.

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

Post-war Occupations

Death

Date	12 February 1965	Age	65 years
Place of Death	Timaru
Cause
Notices	Timaru Herald, 13 & 15 February 1965
Memorial or Cemetery	Arowhenua Maori Cemetery
Memorial Reference
New Zealand Memorials

Biographical Notes

Leslie Tairatu HOPKINSON was born in 1897 at Temuka, the son of Hartley and Henrietta Huirangatira (née KAPITI) HOPKINSON. Leslie's father was born at Temuka of an English father and Scottish mother, and his mother was born at Morven of Maori parents. Leslie married Thirza Mary ASHER on 7 June 1919 at Grantham, Lancashire, England

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database [03 August 2014]; NZ Defence Force Personnel Records (Archives NZ ref. AABK 18805 W5541 0056581) [25 September 2015], NZ Defence Force Personnel Records (Archives NZ ref. AABK 18805 W5562 0131858) [20 November 2016]; Temuka Leader, 19 May 1908, 3 January 1918 [x 3], 5 January 1918, 11 & 22 November 1919, 22 May 1920, 19 January 1928, Timaru Herald, 8 January 1918, 29 October 1919, Sun, 25 September 1919 (Papers Past) [30 July 2014; 03 August 2014; 26 September 2015; 18 November 2016]; NZ BDM Indexes (Department of internal Affairs) [26 September 2015]; Arowhenua Maori Cemetery headstone image (ancestry.com.au - LisaPatterson29) [26 September 2015]; Timaru Herald, 13 & 15 February 1965 (Timaru District Library) [17 November 2016]; SCRoll web submission by T Brosnahan, 12 October 2017

External Links

Researched and Written by

Currently Assigned to

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License unless otherwise stated.