OBITUARY.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10263, 4 February 1899, Page 8

OBITUARY.

-"(PRESS association telegram.) WELLINGTON, February 3. The Rev. W. J. Habens, Secretary of the Education Department, died to-night. He had been ailing for some time, and had a second attack of paralysis.

The Rev. William James Habens, 8.A., was born at Brighton in 1839, and educated at Puget School in that town, and at Hackney College in London. He occupied himself as" an accountant from 1855 to 1859. In 1862 he graduated as B.A. at the London University. He arrived .in New Zealand in January, 1864, as minister of Trinity '• Congregational church in Christchurch, a position which he held until July, 1878.. From January, 1877, till May, 1878, he was Secretary te the Canterbury (afterwards North Canterbury) Board of Education, and in April, 1,878, he was appointed to the Education Department as Inspector-General of Schools. 1n13,879; and 1880 Mr Habens was a member -of the. Royal Commission to enquire into the operations of the New Zealand University and its relations to /secondary schools. He also acted as Secretary to the Commission. He was appointed a Fellow of the New Zealand University in 1880. 'Since 1886 he performed the duties of Secretary for Education, in addition to those of, InspectorGeneral of Schools. Mr Habens was a kindly, unobtrusive man, devoted to his. duty, and by bis death the colony loses one of its most faithful public servants.)