DEATH OF LADY McLEAN.

NAPIER, tliis day.

The death yesterday of Lady Florence Kate McLean deprives Hawke's Bay of the last direct link with a family whose activities in both official and private fields were largely responsible for the original development of the province and closely associated with the early settlement of the North Island in general.

Lady McLean was the widow of Sir Douglas McLean, whose father, Sir Donald McLean, acted for the British and Xew Zealand Governments in the earliest years of settlement in acquiring hundreds of thousands of acres in Hawke's Bay and other land from the Maoris. Sir Donald McLean, at the same time, acquired much Hawke's Bay land on his own account, chiefly in the well-known Maraekakaho station, of 40.000 acres.

Lady McLean wee Irish born, and before her marriage was Miss Florence Butler-Storey. She married Sir Douglas McLean when he was completing his education in Kngland, and she came to Xew Zealand with him shortly afterwards. Lady McLean at all times associated herself with the interests of her adopted country, making an exhaustive study of Maori life. Her interests in this sphere found practical expression in the accumulation of a larze and valuable collection of Maori and Pacificcurios, which four years ago she presented to form the necleus of the Hawke's Bay Art Gallery end Museum.

Lady McLean lived in relative seclusion, especially since the death of Sir Douglas in 1928, but slie was known as an ardent supjKjrter on a generous scale of various charitable and religious causes. She is survived by two daughters, one of whom is the wife of Admiral C. A. Fountaine, of Norfolk.