PERSONAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 February 1922, Page 4

PERSONAL.

Mr. S. G. Smith, M.P. for Taranaki, returned from Wellington fey the mail train last night. Mr. Thomas Edison, the famous American inventor, was 75 years of age on Saturday. Mr. J. H. Hammond, manager of the Hamilton branch of the Bank of New Zealand, is on a visit to New Plymouth. Mr. W. Brodie, manager of the New Plymouth branch of the Bank of New Zealand, has been called to Auckland owing to a bereavement in the family. Mr. H. D. Heather, a well-known Auckland business man and member of the City Council, is reported co be seriously ill. « Mr. Justice Chapman, who will preside at the sessions of the Supreme Court opening at New Plymouth today, arrived from Wanganui last night.

A London cable says Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, until recently Chief-of-Staff of the Imperial Army, contests the North Down by-election as a Unionist. The death occurred at the Wellington Hospital on Friday night of Mr. Thomas Larchin, a colonist of nearly sixty years’ standing. Mr. Larchin, who was born at Richmond, England, arrived in New Zealand as a young

Lieut. R. C. C. Steele, of Hawera, and Lieut. Andrew, V.C., of New Plymouth, were candidates last week at the examination. for their captaincy The practical part was taken at Plimmerton. Both of them passed, gaining the highest places in the list of candidates. They are entitled to hearty congratulations on the result achieved.

Another old Auckland resident, Mr. G. C. Ellis, passed away at his residence, Remuera Road, a few days ago. He was bom in Devonshire, in 1843, his father being a Congregational minister. In 1865 Mr. Ellis went to Queensland. In 1'872 he came to New Zealand and commenced business at Cambridge and later at Napier. The business community of Wellington and a very wide circle of friends were grieved to learn of the sudden death of Mr. James Muir, a director of the firm of Joseph Nathan and Co., and one of its most valued business heads, which occurred on the deck of the ferry steamer Duchess on Friday night. Mr. Muir joined Joseph Nathan and Co. just over 40 years ago. A notable figure in the life of Wanganui for the last thirty years, Dr. H. R. Hatherley, passed away on Friday last at the ripe old age of 78 years. The news will be received, the Chronicle says, with the greatest of regret by a large section of the community of Wanganui, for no medical practitioner was better known or held in higher respect that Hatherley. It was not only as a doctor, either, that he entered into the life of the town. He was a moving spirit in many spheres of activity of a cultured and intellectual nature. Dr. Hatherley was born in Devonshire, and first practised in Nottingham. It was in 1892 that New Zealand first knew him, when he commenced the practice of his profession in | Wanganui. Dr. Hatherley was presi- ■ dent of the British Medical Association for one year while he was in England, and he was twice elected to that honored position in New Zealand. For some time past the doctor h&d been in failing health, but was about town only last week. On Friday, however, he was taken ill and removed to the public hospital, where his death took place.