MISSION HOSTEL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 167, 18 July 1938, Page 8

MISSION HOSTEL.

VALUABLE BEQUESTS.

MISS M. ATKIN'S WILL.

CHURCH AND CITY BENEFIT.

Bequests to the Melanesian Mission, the Angliean Church, the Auckland city corporation and the Auckland Hospital Board are made under the will of Miss Mary Atkin, of Kohimarama, whose death occurred last Thursday in her ninotv-fifth vear.

The bequests include £1000 for the Melanesian Mission, in memory of her brother, the Rev. Joseph Atkin, who died of arrow wounds after burying the martyr bishop. Bishop Patteson, in the Melanesia!! Mission group.

A further sum of £300 is to be held in trust to provide bursaries at St. John's College for Melanfesian or Maori students in training for the minietry.

A part of her property at Kohimarama is to be added to the area previously given as a site for a church and church hall, the additional portion to be used as a eite for a vicarage.

An area of one acre, near her home to be offered to the Auckland Citv Council for development as a children's plav ground. J

The homestead and the surround in« garden and grounds, to be controlled bv trustees as a hostel to be called "St John's Hostel," for aged or infirm missionaries or mission workers on furlough; the residue of the estate after providing for the other bequests to be held in trust as a fund for \he maintenance of the hostel.

An area of an acre on the south side oi the homestead to be offered to the Auckland Hospital Board as a site for a cottage hospital. The house, which is to be converted into a hostel in terms of the will, contains seven rooms and occupies an elevated site on Kohimaram* Road. Miss Atkin who had lived in the locality all her life, was born in a raupo whare near the site of the homestead, in October 1843, being a daughter of the late Mr' William Atkin. Several of the kowhai trees planted there many years ago still remain and the home has numerous associations with the earliest days of A-.ckland.

A collection of exhibits obtained from the Melanesian mission field, including spears, bows and arrows, shields and other articles, was given by her to the Melanesian Mission Trust "Board when the historic stone building near Mission Bay beach was set aside as a museum.