SELWYN CENTENARY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3170, 22 April 1909, Page 7

SELWYN CENTENARY.

Preparations are now being made for the commemoration of the centenary of George A, Selwyn, the first Bishop of New Zealand, and afterwards Bishop of Litchfield, writes a London correspondent under date of March 12tH. He was born at Hampstead, on April 5, 1809. At Eton he had as classfellow Mr Gladstone. He rowed in the first University boat race (1829), being a man of fine physique. It is stated that he once walked from Cambridge to London in 13 hours, without stopping. It was in 1841, while curate of Windsor, that he was consecrated first Bishop of New Zealand and Melanesia. Over a quarter of a century later he became Bishop of Lichfield, where upon his initiative the first Diocesan Conference in which the laity was duly represented met in 1868. Bishop Selwyn died on April 11, 10 years later. It is proposed that whatever offerings may be made at the services held in celebration of the centenary should be divided between the endowment fund of Selwyn College, Cambridge, and the building fund of the "Patteson memorial wing" of St. John's College, Auckland, New Zealand. Apropos of this, the Bishop of Lichfield writes in the "Guardian":— "Those who are connected with the old diocese of Lichfield will remember how closely Bishop Abraham was associated with both St. John's College, Auckland, and Selwyn College, Cambridge. It was on his arrival in Auckland, in 1850, that the council of St. John's College was established to carry out the founder's purpose of making the college the nursery of the ministry arid the centre of all sound learning and religious education to the islands of New Zealand." It was he who, after and alliance of nine years with , Bishop Selwyn in his work *in the Lichfield diocese, only terminated by the death of the latter, proposed the foundation of Selwyn College, Cambridge, as the fittest memorial of the great chief whom he and the Church in England had lost. His association with these two foundations cannot fail to commend them to the favour of those who desire to perpetuate the memory of Bishop Selwyn and his comrades." The services in Lichfield Cathedral, on April 22, will consist of Holy Communion at eight a.m., and special evensong at three p.m., with eermon by Bishop Welldon, Dean of Manchester, when a solemn Te Deum will be sung.

Two wholesale licenses for Mokamu and Awakino were granted by the Bench yesterday. The applications were the result of the decision of the S.M. in the recent case brought by the police for selling liquor in a prohibited area, which was dismissed, the Magistrate holding that Awakino was not in the proclaimed area. A prohibition representative objected to the grantng of the wholesale licenses, but the Magistrate said JJhe had no locus standi. ] | The prisoners who pleaded guilty I were sentenced at the Wellington Supreme 'Court yesterday morning. John David Anderson, thefts of money at Seddon from a man with I whom he had been drinking, was j sentenced to six months' |iinorisonIment; William Albert Hansen, on five charges of falsa pretences and one forgery at Eltham, was sentenced to two years' imprisonment Hansen hadfbeen road foreman under the Eltham County Council, and defrauded that body. Edgar Hupe, on a charge of setting fire to the Royal Hotel, Palmerston North, was sentenced to five years' imprisonment.