PERSONAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 90, 16 December 1913, Page 5

PERSONAL.

Mr J. B. Hine returned to Stratford by last night’s mail train.

Obituary: Mr John Gemmell, 8.A., 78, formerly inspector of schools in the South Island and Westland (states a Press Association telegram from Wellington). He was a distinguished biblical arid theological authority.

Mr Florence McCarthy, one of the oldest journalists in the Dominion, has resigned his position of editor of the Grey River Argus, which he has held since 1884, says a Press Association message from Greymouth. Mr McCarthy, who is 80 years of age, has been engaged in journalism since the age of 20.

Mr R. G- Ecclesfield, examining officer in -the Customs Department at Auckland, has been appointed Collector of Customs at Greymouth, in succession to Mr T. B. Herd, who is promoted to the, chief clerkship in the head office. Mr iW. O’Meara, examining at New Plymouth,'will go to Auckland,-pnd will be replaced by Mr E. D-jGopd, front Wellington-,: says a/ Press Association message from Wellington.

The death of Mr Martin John Sutton, of Reading, is announced from London. Mr Sutton was a Fellow of the Linnaean. Society, a member of the National Agricultural Examination., Board, Gpyernor of the Royal ; Agricultural Society of England, of the Council of which he was a member for 26 years.

Professional astronomers are remarkable for longevity. The present Astronomer-Royal has only had eight predecessors since Charles 11. founded Greenwich Observatory 235 years ago. Three—Flamsteed, Maskelyne, apd Airy—held the post more than forty years. Sir Norman Lockyer, who last year retired from the direction of the Solar Physics Observatory, was at South Kensington for 30 years; and Sir David Gill, who recently returned to England from South Africa, was for twenty-nine years H.M. Astronomer at the Cape.

Sir Lionel Phillips, who was recently shot in a street in Johannesburg, was bom in London in August, 1855. He was M.P., (IT.) for Yeoville, Transvaal, in 1910, and is a partner in the great firm of Wernher, Beit and Co., of Africa and London. He has been identified with the Witwatersrand gold industry in the Transvaal, and was formerly President of the Chamber of Mines. He was one of the four Uitlanders condemned to death by Judge Gregorowski, at the time of the Jameson raid, and subsequently released. He was created a Baronet in 1912, and is a millionaire.