ADVENTUROUS CAREER

Hokitika Guardian, 8 May 1931, Page 5

ADVENTUROUS CAREER

ASH.MEA 1) BARTLETT’S DEATH. Though New Zealand has heard little of the doings of Mr Ellis Ashmead Bartlett in the past ten years, there was a time when people read with eagerness every word he wrote, and weighed his many opinions. This was in the war years, when Mr Ashmead Bartlett was prominent among the several wat correspondent who watched the Dardanelles campaign from first to last. After the guns departed ami a silence had settled over Gallipoli, Mr Ashmead Bartlett made a lecture tour of Australia ami New Zealand, b’qnging with him a collection of original active service drawings and sketches depicting Anzac ; activities—probably the most' comprehensive collection of its kind available at that time. Long before the Dardanelles campaign was thought of, however, .Mr Ashmead Bartlett was a verteran reported of war. He began by accompanying tin- Turkish Army ill the war with Greece in 1898 and was taken pri oner by the (.reeks.

He served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the South African War. and was n special correspondent with the Japanese Army in the Russo-Japanese War. From then on he spent most ol his time in the Balkans, in the Near East, in Morocco —in fact everywhere where there was fighting. His final Great War assignment was on behalf oi the London Press at Jotfre's headquarters in France. From 1924 to 1626 he was Conservative member for Hammersmith. He wrote a number of hooks, including “The Tragedy of Con. teal Europe” and “Dispute-lies from the Dardanelles.” If may he assumed safely that Air Ashmead Bartlett's presence in Lisbon, where lie became ill, was been use of the revolutionary trouble in that country.