PERSONAL ITEMS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2411, 17 March 1915, Page 5

PERSONAL ITEMS

0 Lieutenant-Colonel Barclay." V.D., Officer Commanding the North Island Railway Battalion, New Zealand Engineers, has goue into camp at Trenthani to undertake the Mganisation of the company of field engineers which is to be attached to the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. j A Press Association message from Sydney announces the death of the Rev. Robert MacNicol, ox-Moderator of the ' New Zealand Presbyterian General Assembly. Mr. J. D. W. Georgeson, of Wellingtbn, has, says our Masterton correspondent, been selected from eighteen applicants to be clerk of works in the erection of the new Municipal Buildings in Masterton. Colonel Holmes, commander of the :late Australian war expedition to German New Guinea, has been appointd ;to the command of the Fifth Infantry (Brigade of the Main Expeditionary 'Force. —Rress Association. Mr. W. C. C. Spencer, who retired from the Survey Department six .years lago, died in Auckland last week. He .was born in the Auckland district in ( ; 1844, and was the eldest son of the . (late Rev. S. M. Spencer, who came out lto New Zealand with Bishop Sehvyn's (party in 1842. It is interesting to note that the father, when a young man in ■Illinois, • U.S.A., was attracted to the mission work among the Maoris by 'reading in a little book of the Rev. Samuel Marsden's apostolio labours in New Zealand. The Rev. Mr. Blackburn, Kilbirnie, "'has accepted a call to All Saints' Church, Palmerston North, vice the Rov. Mr. Roser, who has resigned to go to England. Mr. Blackburn will probably take up his new charge about May. According to a Press Association telejtrram from Auckland, Captain Aleo Tay!lor, veterinary surgeon; at Lincoln Col- ■ lege, Canterbury, returned from Egypt •i by the Rotorua yesterday. He was • :veterinary officer ,on the troopship :Athenic. Captain Taylor will report to the Defence Department at Wellington. -• The Rev. E. R. Nevill, who has been appointed Vicar of St. Paul's Cathedral, Duuedin, arrived from London by the Rotorua.—Press Association. . "From a private letter received, in New Plymouth," states the "Taranaki Daily News," "we learn that Mr. Prim-' rose M'Connell, manager of the State Experimental Farm at Ruakura, has tendered his resignation to the Government." The esteem in which the late Bishop • was held by all sections of the ; community has been evinced by the large number of messages of condolence received by Archbishop O'Skea. The Right Hon. the Prime Minister sent the following message: "I regret exceedingly to hear of the dearth of the Right ■Rev. Bishop Grimes. Kindly accept oil behalf of . your Church in New Zealand my sincere sympathy in the loss of such a distinguished prelate." From the Rev. H. Van Stavern came the following:— "Accept- sincere condolence and sympathy in your' l sad bereavement, and kindly convey same to your people here and in Christchurch for the loss of their revered and beloved prelate." The Oamaru Presbytery has sustained -the call by St. Paul's congregation to the Rev. W. W. Brown, Mataura, as successor to the Rev. R. J. Porter. — Press Association. Mr. Paul Latham, stage director of 'the Plimmer-Hall Comedy Company, arrived from Sydney by the Moeraki yesterday.