NEW ZEALAND POET

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 238, 8 October 1936, Page 9

NEW ZEALAND POET

REMARKABLE CAREER.

5 SEAFORTH MACKENZIE. r 3 '• - SENTENCED IN AUSTRALIA. t £. (By Telegraph.—Special to "Star.") c WELLINGTON, Wednesdav. a . t c Seafortli Mackenzie, sentenced to four :1 and a half years' imprisonment for f forging the Great Seal of the High Court of Australia and also forging a document issuable by the Court, is one of New Zealand's foremost poets, had a : great reputation when a young writer and has had a remarkable career. Mackenzie spent his boyhood at Timaru and is believed to have beuit horn there. He came to Wellington to study law and at Victoria University e College was the moving spirit in all literarv matters. He cieated the extravaganza form which has been used 'here by students for many years in their capping presentations and which is based on the Aristophanic model. In collaboration with Mr. I'. A. do la .Mare, a member of the. University Senate, he wrote "Just One Stave More," the song of Victoria College. Graduating in law. lie worked as a solicitor here, but got into difficulties and left the country before the war. The next that was heard of him by his friends was when, he went to Kabaul'with the Australian | forces, aiding in the capture of that place, and became registrar of the High' Court of the Mandated Territory. Later he was for a time acting-Administrator of Rabaul. He returned to Australia some years ago and then became a registrar of the High Court of Australia, being made j principal registrar about two or three years back. From time to time he contributed to various magazines and even wrote some verse, though nothing of | his later days equalled the poems which jare to be found plentifully in Clinic land Alexander's anthology of New Zealand veibc.