NEW MAGISTRATE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 661, 13 May 1929, Page 16

NEW MAGISTRATE

APPOINTMENT OF MR. G. N. MORRIS VARIED CAREER The vacancy in the magistracy, used by the appeintm nt of Mr. J. i. Lu.—ord, eo be chief judge of oamoa, has been filled by the appointment of Mr. G. N. Morris, official assignee at Auckland, to the position of stipendiary magistrate. The appointment was announced by the Prime Minister, Sir Joseph Ward, on Saturday. Mr. Morris was born in Queenstown and educated at the Otago Boys’ High School and Victoria University College, where he studied law. He entered the Old-age Pensions Department in 1903, but was transferred to the Justice Department five years later, serving in Queenstown, Wellington and Christchurch.

In 1912 he became clerk of the Magistrate’s Court at Cromwell, moving to Lyttelton a year later and to Reefton in 1914. He served as a secondlieutenant in the New Zealand Rifle Brigade until he was wounded and invalided home in 1917, and on his discharge was appointed clerk of the Magistrate’s Court at Tauranga. After lie had been at Tauranga for a few months he was appointed resident commissioner at Niue Island and worked there so successfully that, when in 1921 he was transferred to Rarotonga as collector of customs and treasurer, a petition was got up by the natives of Niue praying that he might be sent back. In 1922, therefore, he returned to Niue as resident commissioner, staying there for three years. In August, 1925, he was appointed chief clerk in the office of the official assignee in bankruptcy in Auckland and when Mr. W. S. Fisher retired in 1927 Mr. Morris succeeded him as official assignee.

At present Mr. Morris is in Wellington attending a sitting of the Public Service Appeal Board. No definite information has been received, but it is expected that he will succeed Mr. Luxford as magistrate in the North Auckland district.