MOVIE PIONEER.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 230, 28 September 1929, Page 12

MOVIE PIONEER.

DEATH OF MR. T. SALVEY. EARLY LIFE ON GOLDFIELDS, A pioneer of the motion picture industry in New Zealand (Mr. Thomas ■Salvey) died on Thursday morning, at a house in Cook Street. Mr. Salvey, who was 75 years of age, had toured the Dominion with a small plant partly of his own construction before the days of regular picture theatres, and had gone Home to London in an effort to develop certain moving picture inventions which he thought marketable. He was disappointed, and, after being in England for sixteen years, came out again ten years ago to find that the cinema had made giant strides. Brief as his connection with tho motion picture was, it served to show his mechanical bent. Ho was engaged in mechanical work, chiefly with electricity, until a short time ago. His childhood and early life- had been spent on the goldfields of the West Coast, where he lived with his parents, on their arrival from County Kerry, Ireland. He was engaged for some years in gold mining, and had many experiences on the diggings. Since settling in Auckland, after the War, he had been a prominent member of the Auckland branch of the West Coast Association. Mr. Salvey had a grown up family resident at Wellington.