REV THOMAS FEE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 167, 29 April 1935, Page 6

REV THOMAS FEE.

HIS EIGHTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. LONG SERVICE IN CHURCH. (Special to the “ Guardian.”) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. The llev. Thomas Fee, of Opawa, who was Wesleyan minister at Ashburton from 1903 to 1906, who will celebrate his eighty-fifth birthday on Wednesday, entered the Methodist ministiy in 1876 5 . He retired in 1913, on the advice of his doctors, but ever since then lie has been regularly preaching and assisting other clergymen of Ins church. Until three months ago, when he was attacked by an illness which made it difficult for him to get about, he liad been preaching, on an average, once a Slunday since his retirement. Mr Fee, who was interviewed on Saturday, said lie hopes soon to be able to resume his work, and that his doctor thinks it will not be long before this is posrsible. . Mr Fee was born in Drumgooland, County Down, Ireland. He came to New Zealand in November, 1873, as a certificated teacher, and took up a position as second master in the St. Albans School. Having decided to enter the ministry, Mr Bee went to Wesley College, Auckland, in 1876, tor Ins training. In 1877 he was supplying at Nelson, and was appointed to the circuit of Waimate on his ordination. The first conference of the church to be held in Dunedin was in 1880, and Mr Fee is now the only living member or that conference. He has since bad circuits all over New Zealand. Mr Fee was president of the conference of the Australasian Methodist Church in New Zealand in 1909. The establishment of the Methodist Church of New Zealand, as apart from that in Australia, did not take place till the year of his retirement, 1913, when a union between the Wesleyan Methodists and the Primitive Methodists took place. . . . One of Mr Fee’s greatest activities has been his work for prohibition. In 1902 lie did much to further the cause of local restriction in Ashburton, and in 1906 he was relieved by conference from bis circuit work in order to make a lecture tour of New Zealand under the auspices of the New Zealand Alliance. Mr Fee lias been to Australia several times, and was a delegate to the general conference of the Methodist Church in Australasia, held in 1907. Since his retirement lie has lived in Christchurch.