ENGLISH LEGAL DIGNITARIES

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26515, 1 September 1951, Page 6

ENGLISH LEGAL DIGNITARIES

ARRIVAL IN N.Z. FROM AUSTRALIA '

INTERVIEW WITH MASTER OF THE ROLLS (New Zealana Press Association) AUCKLAND, August 31. Two English legal dignitaries arrived in Auckland by air to-day, after attending the Commonwealth Law Conference in Australia. They are Sir Raymond Evershed. Master of the Rolls, and Sir Leonard Holmes, immediate oast-president of the United Kingdom Law Society and co-president of tne International Bar Association. Sir Raymond Evershed is accompanied by Lady Evershed. Mr Justice Finlay, one of New Zealand's representatives at the conference, returned in the same flying-boat. The visitors were welcomed at the flying-boat base by the Attorney-Gen-eral (Mr T. C. Webb), on behalf of the Government; Mr J. B. Johnston, vice-president of the New Zealand Law Society; Mr Justice Stanton; Mr C. J. Ganand, president of the Auck land Law Society; Mr A. S. Bailey, the Deputy-Mayor of Auckland, ana Mrs Bailey; and Mr W. L. Middlemiss, of the Department of Internal Auairs. Sir Raymond and Lady Evershed’s visit —their first to New Zealand—will be a short one. They will leave tor Waitomo and Rotorua to-morrow, return to Auckland on Monday, ana depart on Tuesday for Canada where they will be the guests of the Canadian Bar Association at Toronto. Sir Leonard Holmes will be in New Zealand until September 11. He will visit Christchurch. Dunedin, and Wellington. On his way to the United States to attend a conference of the American Bar Association be hopes to spend two days in Honolulu. He will leave New York for England on September 20. Duties of Muter of Rolls In an interview to-night. Sir Raymond Evershed said that the Commonwealth Law Conference had been a great success. Asked what duties his post as Master of the Rolls entailed. Sir Raymond Evershed said he was President of the Court of Appeal and third Judge in England, and also had charge of all State papers. This latter task, he said, was an onerous one. “At present I am trying to find a home for 40,000 volumes of Foreign Office papers,” he added. “However, we destroy a lot.” One of Sir Raymond Evershed’s most pleasant duties while in New Zealand will be to attend a reunion of old Cliftonians (former pupils of Clifton, a public school near Bristol) in Auckland on Monday night He is president of the Clifton Old Boyi’ Association in England. Sir Raymond Evershed left Clifton, where he had been head of the school and a member of the Rugby fifteen, to join the Royal Engineers in 1917. He served as a subaltern in France and took an arts degree at Oxford after the First World War. He has since been made an Honorary Fellow by Balliol. Sir Raymond Evershed began studying law under the late Mr Justice Bennett, the father of Lady Evershed "That’s how I met mv wife,” Sir Raymond Evershed said. He added smilingly that his association with the Bennett family went even further “Mr Justice Bennett’s clerk—67-year-old Mr F. R. Hallett—is now ‘ mv clerk,’’ he said. Sir Leonard Holmes, who will leave for Dunedin by air on Monday, will attend a reception at Christchurch on Wednesday to the Lord Chancellor c Viscount Jowitt). who headed the United Kingdom delegation at the Commonwealth Law Conference.