BARNICOAT ESSAY

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19724, 14 September 1929, Page 18

BARNICOAT ESSAY

LORD MELCHETT WRITES TO WINNER. TRIBUTE TO MISS D. MULGAN. (FROM OCB OWW CCKBBSPOSDEST.} LONDON, August 1. Nelson College has various scholarships, but perhaps one of the most striking of them is that known as the "Bnrnieoat Essay Prize," which was founded by the late Mrs Julian Grande in memory of her father, the Hon. J. Wallis Barnieoat.

The founder, who was herself a dis tinguished student at Nelson College, created the prize essay open to both boys and girls. The entrant has to choose as the subject the man or woman who, in the opinion of the scholar, is the person who in the whole world has done the greatest service to humanity during the year. The prize essay has to be published in the College Magazine as well as in two other papers in New Zealand.

This year's prize-winner was Miss Dorothea Mulgan, and her subject was Lord Melchett, who is perhaps still more generally remembered as Sir Alfred Mond. A copy of the magazine was sent to Mr Grande in Geneva. He thought Lord Melchett would be inter ested to read the essay, and, accordingly, forwarded him the magazine. In his letter of acknowledgment to Mr Grande, Lord Melchett referred to the "very excellent essay which really reflects eredit on the girl who wrote it. It was interesting to find one's work appreciated in such a distant place, but I am more interested in the intelligent and capable way in which the whole matter has been dealt with."

He enclosed a letter asking Mr Grande to forward it to Miss Mulgan. This letter is so characteristic of the writer that it is interesting to quote it. Lord Melchett wrote from his pri vate residence on July 26th:—

"Mr Julian Grande has sent rue the Nelson Girls' Collegian, with your Bar nieoat essay. 1 very much appreciate the fact that you have chosen myself for the subject of your essay, and I want to congratulate you on the very able way in which you have summarised tht» work of the Mond-Turner Conference, and the able way in which the whole essay is written.

"It is certainly unusual for a young lady at college to take an interest in such economic questions, and still more to be able to present same in a clear and lucid manner. Although I have not had the pleasure of knowing you, I should judge from this essay that you should have a bright future as a student of economic subjects. "Hoping to have the pleasure of some day making your acquaintance,— Yours sincerely, Melchett." For the last twenty-five years a scholar in one or other of the colleges has gained the Barnicoat essay prize, not as a laudator temporis acti, but as a eulogist of some friend of mankind "in the living present."—(Extract from the "Life of Constance Grande," by Julian Grande.)