OBITUARY

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21315, 7 November 1934, Page 16

OBITUARY

COLONEL G. A. BLAIR (raiss assocu.tio* teleg&am.) WELLINGTON, November 6. News has been received by Mr W. Blair, Lower Hutt, that his. brother, Colonel G. A. Blair, formerly of the Liverpool Scottish Regiment, has died in Calcutta. Colonel Blair was known to many New Zealand men who served in France. EARL OF DESART (BRITISH OFFICIAL WIBELBSS.) (Received November 6, 7.5 p.m.) RUGBY, November 5. The death has occurred of the Ear] of Desart. [Hamilton John Agmondesham Cuffe naval officer, international lawyer and fifth Earl of Desart. was born in August, 1848, the second son of the third earl, and was educated at Radley School and Trinity College, Cambridge He entered the Navy in 1860, but after serving as a midshipman for a few years, decided on a legal career. Called to the Bar in 1872, he practised for a time and after acting as secretary to the Judicature Committee of 1877, was appointed Assistant Solicitor to the Treasury next year. Promotion to the posts of Solicitor to the Treasury and Queen's Proctor followed in i 894 which carried with them the office of Public Prosecutor. Four years later, on the death of his elder brother, he succeeded to the earldom—an Irish one. In 1905 he went to Paris as one of the British representatives at an enquiry into a sensational occurrence m British waters. In October, 1904. when the Russo-Japanese war was in progress, a Russian fleet left the Baltic to meet the Japanese Navy in the Far East. From the start it feared that Japanese torpedo boats had reached European waters to attack it. On a dark night when in the North Sea it fired on a number of boats, sinking one, killing some members of its crew and injuring others. The vessels were not however. Japanese warships, but English fishing boats. Russia promptly liability and paid the sum of £65.000 at which the Paris conference assessed the damage. Lord Desart's experience of naval life proved of great value at the enquiry and also when, after resigning the post of Public Prosecutor, he was appointed British plenipotentiary at the International Naval Congress in London in 1908. At the end of the congress next year he was given a United Kingdom peerage as Baron Desart of Desart and in 1910 was made a member of the International Court of Arbitration at The Hague. In 1915 he was also appointed chairman of the Prize Claims Committee and when the Irish Free State was established, was elected to its Senate.] MR PETER HEYES (UKnrn IT ESS association—r.v ELECTRIC TKLEGRvpn—CorviUGUT.) SYDNEY, November (!. The death has occurred of Mr Peter Heyes, formerly Commissioner of Taxes in New Zealand. He was 79 years old. GENERAL SIR HAROLD WALKER (Received November 0, 7.5 p.m.) LONDON, November 5. The death has occurred oC General Sir Harold Walker, who temporarily

commanded the New Zealand Brigade at the Gallipoli landing, and later was in command of fFie £irst Australian Division at Gallipoli. and afterwards in Flanders.