£10,000 FOR COLLEGE

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23447, 30 September 1941, Page 6

£IO,OOO FOR COLLEGE

GIFT FROM MR ARTHUR SIMS SCHOLARSHIP HONOURING LORD RUTHERFORD A gift of £IO,OOO, to establish a science scholarship in memory of Lord Rutherford, has been made to Canterbury University College by Mr Arthur Sims, of Christchurch and London. Mr Sims' like Lord Rutherford, was a graduate of Canterbury College, Mr Sims’s gift, notice of which was received by the College Council at its meeting yesterday, doubles the amount of a previous offer of £SOOO. Three years ago, in March, 1938, Mr Sims had offered the college £SOOO towards a fund for a research scholarship in memory of Lord Rutherford, said Mr C. T. Aschman. It had been Mr Sims’s hope at that time that the Gov. eminent of New Zealand would supply another £SOOO, making the total endowment £IO,OOO. “The years have gone by ana nothing has eventuated from the Government. So Mr Sims has taken it on himself to find the whole £IO,OOO. There is no need for me to add any explanation of what such a very hand-

some gift means. To us at Canterbury College, where Lord Rutherford did his first work, this gift from Mr Sims will come as a very fine means of perpetuating the memory of perhaps one of the gj-catest men New Zealand has ever turned out.” Dr. J. Might also expressed the gratitude of the college to Mr Sims, and on his motion, seconded by Mr Aschman. the following resolution was adopted: “That the council of Canterbury University College accept with great pleasure the offer of Mr Arthur Sims, M.A., of the sum of £IO,OOO to establish ’a scholarship in memory of the late Lord Rutherford, to be called the Rutherford Memorial Scholarship, and to be awarded on certain conditions for excellence and promise in some branch of science; and that it record in its minutes its warm thanks for so unique a gift, and its high appreciation of the public spirit which prompted the offer. The pleasure of the council is enhanced by this manifestation of the esteem in which a graduate of the college holds his college, and of the high value he places on the services rendered by Lord Rutherford to science.” Mr Aschman added that although full particulars were not yet available, he did not think there would be any hampering restrictions on the bestowal of the scholarship. Mr Sims had expressed the opinion that it would be wise if the scholarship were not awarded until a year after the end of the war, as he did not want men who had served their country in the armed forces to be debarred merely because they happened to be overseas at the time when the award was made.