PERSONAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 292, 19 January 1910, Page 4

PERSONAL.

Mr. Horace Baker, of Adelaide, has been appointed organist and choirmaster ol Napier Cathedral.—Press telegram.

Mr. G. X. Curtis left Stratford yesterday and expects to be absent for about two months., Aviueh period of time hfe intends to occupy with a bicycle tour of 'the South Island. llr. F. \Y. Sandford returned to Now Plymouth 011 Monday night from a trip, first to Chri.slclmroli and then to the backhlocks in land from llnetilii, on the Main Trunk railway.

Miss Cora Anderson, of Stratfor.], who was trained in St. Helen's Hospital, Auckland, has been appointed matron at the Townley Maternity Home, Gisborne.—Post. There passed away at Dunedin last week another of the old pioneers of this Dominion, Mr. George Watson, at the ago Uf eighty-two. Born in 18*28, on the 17th of January, in London, he had been privileged to see part of four reigns,, with all their stirring events, and took a delight in recounting the interest created" by the final abolition of slavery, the Chartist riots, the invasion of the Crimea, etc. Apprenticed to Tobias Teape, of the Tower Hill Printing Office, which in its early days was under the special patronage of George IV., it was practically the Government Printing Office (says the Star). He was the patriarch of Rechabitism in Otago, having been one of the promoters and charter members of the Hope of Otago Tent. Mr. Watson came out in the ltajah to Otago in 1853, originally booking hispassage for Wellington, but owing to serious injury to the vessel when five hundred miles oil' the coast of Van Diemen Land (now Tasmania), the captain decided to make Port Chalmers for repairs!, which took ten weeks. Finding wages low at 'Wellington, and thai a goodly number of the old settlers had gone to the Australian goldlields, Mr. Watson went across to Melbourne in 1854, and took employment on the Age. which was anything but a robust journal at that time. Wages ranged up to 30s a day. Xot liking the extreme heat, he returned to Wellington in 1855, working as a'compositor until his plant arrived, enabling him to commence business on Lambton-quay north on his own account in 185(i, where he printed and published the Royal Xew Zealand Almanac for 1857, and on to 185!), receiving good support alike from the public and the then Provincial Government. Selling out to advantage, he directed his attention to Sydney, returning to Canterbury and starting business in 1 Lytteltoij at the end of 1859.