Obituary - Mr. George Henry Bassett

5 September 1950 The Murrumbidgee Irrigator (Leeton)

One of the first settlers on the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, and one of the State's best known bee farmers, died at the age of 70 recently as the result of a fall while working on the top of a shed. 

He was Mr. George Henry Bassett, a brother of Mrs. O. G. Washington of Leeton.

The late Mr. Bassett was on top of a shed on his property at Wodonga, prising off a sheet of iron, when he slipped and fell to the ground, breaking his neck. Death was instantaneous. 

Before coming to the irrigation area in the earliest days of the settlement Mr. Bassett was on the land at Oura, near Wagga.

He came to the M.I.A before the irrigation water was turned on, and took up general farming pursuits.

He also went in for bee farming on the area.

Selling out his interests he moved to Stroud on the North Coast and later to Tumut, purchasing a property at Bombowlee which he devoted to bee farming and which is still being conducted by his son Lloyd.

About seven years ago he left Tumut and opened a honey business at Croydon, later going to Nowra, and finally back to the town of his birth Wodonga, where he purchased a farming property.

He served for years as Chairman of the Honey Marketing Board and president of the Commercial Apiarists Association.

He was interested in the furtherance of agriculture and bee farming, in particular, all his life.

He is survived by his widow, two sons and four daughters, also one brother and three sisters. 

The remains were taken to Tumut for burial and the funeral left the Seventh Day Adventist Church for the Tumut new cemetery where the interment took place.

Pastor Scragg of Wagga, officiated at the graveside. Mr. O. J. Washington, of Leeton, a nephew, was one of the pall bearers.