A NEW JUDGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 225, 23 September 1938, Page 11

A NEW JUDGE.

NATIVE LAND COURT.

MR. G. P. SHEPHERD CHOSEN.

(From Our Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, Thursday.

The Gazette announces the appointment of Mr. George Patrick Shepherd, chief clerk and research officer of the Native Department, Wellington, as a Judge of the Native Land Court from October. Although it has not been decided where the new Judge will be located, it is stated that Mr. Shepherd will succeed Judge H. F. Avson, who recently returned to Rarotonga to resume the position of Resident Commissioner there.

Mr. Shepherd has had a wide experience of native land administration. He first entered the Public Service in 190fl, when he joined the Justice Department.

In 1917 he was transferred to the Native Department, and since tlien has been at h«a<l office in Wellington. When the Native Department, formerly allied with the Justice Department,, was separated and re-established in 1922, Mr. Shepherd wan appointed chief clerk. In Addition he was later appointed research officer to the Department. Mr. Shepherd studied law Victoria University College. He was admitted as a solicitor in 1920. In the course of his duties in the frequently visited Auckland. He spent Native Department Mr. Shepherd has some days there recently in connection with the inquiry by the Royal Commission into the Orakei lands dispute.