PROMINENT AUCKLAND WOMEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 103, 3 May 1930, Page 14

PROMINENT AUCKLAND WOMEN.

MRS. CAUGHEY SMITH. Auckland is proud of its citizens who have given to the city great gifts. Their generosity has been unbounded, and their benefactions are to be seen on every side, in the open spaces, the fine buildings, and the provision made for the future. Few have been greater in their open-handed lavishness than Mrs. Caughey Smith, widow of the late Mr. W. H. Smith. Even in her girlhood days Mrs. Smith's mind turned to helping others less fortunate than herself, and she began her work for missions in Belfast. There she was on the committee of the Prison Gate Mission. Immediately after her marriage she went to New York, from where Mr. Smith had returned to Belfast to claim his bride. Soon after settling down in tiie great city shebegan to work with Mrs. Tvliitimore in rescue work. Mrs. Whitimore was the woman who started the first Door of Hope in America, and who. brought prominently before the public the great need that existed to hold out the hand of kindness to the young. lives which had. been wrecked in the struggle of life. Mrs. Smith also worked hard in the Jerry McAuley Mission, in; Waters Street, New York. Returning to Belfast with Mr. Smith, they both started a Helping Hand Mission-in Corporation and Dock Streets, where the need for assistance amongst the poorer population was manifest. The strain affected Mr. Smith's health, and he came out to New Zealand and settled in Auckland. Shortly afterwards he started a Helping Hand Mission in Freeman's Bay, ana in this Mrs. Smith worked hard. The first Door „of Hope was started in Cook Street, and this mission was called after the American Door of slope, which was a rescue home and a maternity home for unfortunate gnls. Mrs. Smith helped him in every way when Mr. Smith opened the Central Mission in Albert Stret, where she was president of the visiting sisters, twenty in . number, and many a sick and sorry soul blessed their unse hsh efforts. This work engrossed a great deal of her time till the life-long fellowship and loving partnership in good works was dissolved by death. Left alone, Mrs. Smith has devoted her time and her income to helping Where needed, and has built a hospital in connection with the Methodist College at Paerata,;in commemoraton of her nephew, W. Henry Caughey, who died in the Great War. The following year she built a large chapel for the same institution as a memorial to her late husband. Besides this Mr. and Mrs. Smith gave a convalescent home for the sick at Ellerslie called the Alexandra Home, after the late Queen. This was handed over to the Hospital Board. The boys' floor at the Y.M.C.A. buildings was the gift of Mrs. Smith in memory of Mr. Smith. Quinton Park, Bayswater, called after her mother's birthplace, and handed over to the Takapuna Borough Council, was another in the long list of benefactions she has made to Auckland. Mrs. Smith and her brother, the late Mr. Caughey, gave the Mount Albert Methodist Orphanage for homeless children. Last year she presented Auckland City with about an acre at Ellerslie, adjoining the convalescent home, to build a St. Helens maternity home. Her most recent gift is to present the city with thirty acres, a beautiful site at Green Bay, which will be invaluable when Auckland has fulfilled her destiny and has spread all over the isthmus. Mrs. Smith's last gift is to build a church at Baroda, India, to commemorate her; visit with Mr. Smith to that city in connection with the American Episcopalian Mission. Truly few cities can boast of such openhanded munificence and such unselfish thought of others in one of their most respected citizens.