100 YEARS OLD THIS WEEK

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27737, 15 August 1955, Page 2

100 YEARS OLD THIS WEEK

Mrs Alfred J. Merton LIFELONG INTEREST IN EDUCATION Mrs A- J- Merton, one of the most outstanding women of Canterbury, will celebrate her one hundredth birthday on Thursday. She is a woman of great courage and fortitude, and has been a most successful teacher to whom hundreds of women in New Zealand and beyond owe much both in character and in knowledge. Mrs Merton is the widow of Mr A. J. Merton, who for 40 years was organist and choirmaster at Christ’s College. Mrs Merton has retained all her faculties, although she has an occasional tendency to deafness.’ She is a great reader and lover of flowers and continues a lifelong interest in education. < Mrs Merton was born in Cardiff, Wales, the ninth in the family of 15 of Mr and Mrs George Grierson. When 15 months old she was affiliated by poliomyelitis, and for years had practically no use of her legs and feet. In 1864 the Grierson family came to New Zealand in the British Empire, and Mr Grierson became partner in the business that was later the D.I.C. Through her energy and determination to be active the child gradually overcame, to a certain extent, her lameness. She played cricket and rowed on the Avon with her brothers and their friends, and helped to catch kerosene tins full of whitebait in the river, Mrs Mertop wap educated at home by her elder sister, who had been to sphool in Germany. Her English, languages and general knowledge were good, but she had no mathematics, a great disadvantage when she wished tp take a university degree, for at that time applied mathematics—mechanics and hydrostatics—was com’ pulsory. With Helen Connon (afterwards Mrs MacMillan Brown) and JSmily Brittan (afterwards Mrs T. S. Fpster) she was one of the early women students at Canterbury University College, and with irons on her boots, reaching to her knees, she walked to ana from her home in Avonside to attend evening lectures at the college. A teaching career that extended over 50 years was begun at Bingsland School, «t Avonside. From there Mrs Merton joined the staff of the We?t Christchurch Schoo! and later opened her own school, which she conducted successfully until 1900. Then she taught at Miss Bowen’s private school until she became ill. She continued teaching privately for a time and then had a trip to the United States and EnglandIn 1882 she was married to Mr Alfred Merton, a member of a musical family who wap the composer of the music for the Christ’s College song, the words of which were written by Pember Reeves. Early Memories Mrs Merton has memories of some of the principal events in the history of Christchurch, and recalls her family’s friendship with leading citizens. She remembers being taken by her father to the ceremony of the laying of the foundation stone of the Christchurch Cathedral, and recalls the flood of 1868. when the Waimakariri river flooded Christchurch. A happy memory was of seeing Mr J. Armstong. first curator of the Botanic Gardens, planting trees on the banks of the Avon. Interesting friends of earlier days were the Washbourns, of Brockworih, Riccarton, Dean Jacobs and Mrs Jacobs, the Harper famjlv, particularly the Rev. (afterwards Dean) Walter i Harper, and the von Haasts, one of whom, Heinrich, remained a firm friend until his death a few years ago, Dr. Llewellyn Powell, first suoerintendent of the Christchurch Public Hospital, was her brother-in-law. Apart from home and school, Mrs Merton’s chief interests were the Girls’ Friendly Society and the Mothers’ Union, of whieh she was one of the founders. She was much in demand as a speaker at meetings of branches of the union, and retains her interest in the St Michael’s branch. Of Mr and Mrs Morion’s six children. five are alive. Mr J. L. C. Mer« ton lives in Palmerston North. Mr Owen Merton, R.8.A.. a well-known painter of water colours, died in 1931. and his son, the Bev. Father Louis, of Gethsemane, the Trappist monastery in Kentucky, has become famous as th? author of “Elected Silence.” published under the name of Thomas Merton. The eldest of Mrs Merton’s four daughters is Mrs Trier, of Crawley, Sussex. She visited Christchurch recently. Another daughter, Mrs S. Wreaks, lives in Auckland, end Misses A. and K. Merton live with their mother in Cambridge terrace. One of Mrs Merton’s eight grandchildren was killed in 1943 whil® serving with the Canadian Air Force, and she has seven great-grandchildren.

Miss D. E. Lane presided at the August meeting of the garden circle of the Canterbury Women’s Club, which was an open evening for visitors. Mr E. H. Barton arranged an entertaining talk and screening of his attractive collection of coloured pictures of gardens and scenic views. Competitions, judged by the visitors, resulted; spray, Mrs E- G. Manhire 1. Mrs T. L. Jones 2. Mrs W. H. Flavel 3; man’s buttonhole, Mrs Lodge 1, Mrs L. Hulston 2, Mrs E. Seward 3.