MRS G. H. WATTS INVESTED

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28133, 23 November 1956, Page 2

MRS G. H. WATTS INVESTED

LIFE-LONG SERVICE TO COMMUNITY

Mrs G. H. Watts, who was awarded an M.B.E. in the last New Year Honours “For lifelong work on local bodies and church work,” was one of the Christchurch women invested by the Governor-General (Sir Willoughby Norrie) in Wellington yesterday. Mrs'Watts, who is the mother of the Minister of Finance (Mr J. T. Watts), has served the community with untiring devotion in many welfare organisations.

A long-term member of the Canterbury Women’s Club. Mrs Watts was president for five years. During the Second World War she was appointed director of the club’s comforts circle, which provided many thousands of knitted garments for New Zealand servicemen on overseas duty, as well as babies’ clothes sent to mothers in bombed areas of Britain. She was also one of the club’s delegates to the National Council of Women and was appointed a visitor to Sunnyside Mental Hospital and to /Templeton Farm.

Mrs Watts was president of the Comforts for Korea Committee during the committee’s entire existence. For many years she was president of the women’s branch of the Christchurch Citizens’ Association and has been actively associated with the Navy League over a long period. She founded the Friends of the Public Hospital and was first president of the organisation. Church work is another of her life-long interests.