OBITUARY

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23300, 9 April 1941, Page 4

OBITUARY

MR E, P. BUNNY fP.S.S.) . WELLINGTON, April 8. The death has occurred of Mr Edmund Percy Bunny, one of the oldest and best-known members of the legal profession in Wellington, and, a man who had been prominent in many avenues of .-public life,. specially in Lower Hutt. Mr Bunny died at the age of 77. He was born in Wellington, a son of Mr Henry Bunny, Provincial Secretary and Deputy Superintendent of Wellington Province. He attended Nelson College and Wellington College and studied at Canterbury University College, where he took the degree of B.A. After being a junior master at Wellington College for a short time he began the practice of the law in Wellington in 1889, and at the time of his death he had been at the bar longer than any other barrister in Wellington except Mr.P. Levi. He was, in partnership with Mr N. T. Gillespie.

As a citizen of Lower Hutt Mr Bunny was active in many spheres over a long span of years, and when the elevation of the borough to the status of a city was being celebrated it was said that.had it .not been for, Mr Bunny there would have' been ’no Lower Hutt City, The reference was to his interest in river protection works. Mr Bunny took a leading part in the formation. of the , Hutt. River Board and was its solicitor at the time’ of his death. In 1899 he was elected a member of the Lower Hutt Borough Council and was mayor for two periods, being honoured by re-election several times.

Mr Bunny played for Canterbury College in the first Rugby match between that college and Otago University, and throughout the remainder of his life he continued to interest himself in Rugby and other sports. He held office in sports bodies of almost every kind in the Hutt Valley even to the time of his death, and had held office in the district governing bodies of some. He was a member of the first advisory board appointed under the Macarthy Trust and he assisted many organisations as honorary solicitor. Mrs Bunny, who was Miss B. L. Cimino before their marriage, survives her husband. Mr and Mrs Bunny’s only son died shortly after the Great War from wounds received on service. There are three daughters, Misses C., M. P., and A, Bunny. MR W. G. BOWLES The death occurred in Waimate recently of Mr William Goldsmith Bowles, who was born at Waituna in 1866. He was a nephew of Mr S. W. Goldsmith, who was Mayor of Waimate between 1882 and 1883. He is survived by a ' son and a daughter of his first marriage, Mr Clarence Bowles and Mrs B. Wright, of Marton, and by his second wife and two daughters, Misses Rene and Margery Bowles, of Waimate. A son, Mr W. B. Bowles, who won the Military Medal, was killed in the Great War.