Sir George Fenwick.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19732, 24 September 1929, Page 10

Sir George Fenwick.

With sincere regret we announce this morning the death of Sir George Fenwick, Managing-Director for half a century of the Otago Daily Times and Witness. Though death is never a surprise when it comes to a man over eighty years of age, Sir George played such a prominent part in the Dominion's history, and was so closely and continuously associated with the progress of the South Island, that it will not be easy to think of Otago without him. Nor will it be good for us to forget the lesson of his long life and of his great successes. Able though he always was and shrewd, it was hard wort, doggedness and patience that brought him his triumphs, and made him so many years ago one of the Dominion's outstanding citizens. It is the custom to say that there were opportunities fifty years ago which do not exist to-day, and that anyone who had good health and average hack was bound to succeed. It is true that the opportunities existed, but it is doubtful if they were any easier to recognise then than they" are now, and it is certainly not true that they could be exploited without courage and incessant hard work. Sir George Fenwick moved from the " case" to the board room because he made bigger sacrifices than most of those who started with him and showed greater capacity and greater energy. He moved from preeminence in one office to pre-emin; nee in the journalism of the whole Dominion largely because nothing was ever too much trouble for him and because he was never content this year with the advances that had been made last year or the year before. To the very end of his long life he was progressive, vigilant, far-seeing, and endlessly industrious, and we are speaking of him in his capacity as a newspaper director only. His public work was recognised, and widely appreciated and praised, when the honour of knighthood was conferred on him, but it is as a journalist that he* will be chiefly remembered, and it is his services to journalism that it is most appropriate for his contemporaries to remember and ponder over.