PERSONAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 June 1940, Page 4

PERSONAL

The latest Wanganui recruit for the Expeditionary Force in A. J. Darby, who has represented Wanganui in many sports and who is still a member of the Marist Rugby Club senior team. Mr Darby represented Wanganui at cricket, soccer and hockey before he was 20. He has also represented Wanganui at weight-lifting, rowing, athletics and wrestling, and at the last West Coast athletics championships he won the three hurdle titles. He was New Zealand 120 yards hurdles champion in 1931. As well as representing Wanganui at Rugby for 10 years he was selected for Hawke’s Bay in 1924, but an injury on the eve of his match prevented him for playing. In 1926 he represented Wellington at Rugby. One of the two sole survivors of the pioneer Volunteer Corps in Taranaki, Mr Alexander Black, of New Plymouth, well-known in the Woodville district as first editor of the Woodville Examiner, has died at the age of 89. Mr Black was the son of original Taranaki settlers and as a young man took up newspaper work. He was associated with journalism in Taranaki and Manawatu. The Taranaki Volunteer Corps of which he was a member was present at the battle of Waireka, and also marched to Whitecliffs, after the massacre in 1869. The other survivor of this corps lives at Hawera. The late Mr Black was a freemason of 67 years’ standing and a past-master. He was also an active bowler up to the time of his death.

Mr George William Slade, well known for his association with the administration of Rugby football and his activities in the printing industry, died at his home in Brooklyn, Wellington, on Monday night. Mr Slade, who was 57 years of age, had been confined to his bed for nearly a year after an operation. Mr Slade was born in Sydney in 1883, and came to New Zealand in 1907. He was in partnership with the Hon J. McLeod, M.L.C., in a printing business in Taranaki till 1913 when he went' to Wellington and started m business on his own account. A keen follower of Rugby football. Mr Slade for some years held an important post on the adminsitrative side of the game. He served on the New Zealand Rugby Union’s management committee and was for about three years chairman of that committee.