Notable Service To N.Z. Education

Press, Volume C, Issue 29673, 17 November 1961, Page 7

Notable Service To N.Z. Education

Mr W. J. Cartwright, one of the best-known educationists in New Zealand, will retire from teaching at the end of the first term next year. He sand yesterday that he hoped to devote more time to his other interests. principally the Christchurch Postprimary Schools’ Council, of which he has been chairman for the whole of its 14 years; ■the New Zealand Secondary School Boards’ Association, of which he is vice-presi-dent; the Canterbury University Council, of which he is a senior member; Town Hall Promotion, of which he is vice-chairman: and the Christchurch Marriage Guidance Council, of which he is also vice-chairman. Mr Cartwright was educated at the Pleasant Point District High School, qualified at the Christchurch Teachers’ College, and graduated from Canterbury Uni-

versity College. After a few years’ teaching, . he was appointed lecturer 'in education at the Teachers’ College for 10 years and from this position became head of the old Normal School. When that was disestablished in 1953, Mr Cartwright became head of the new Elmwood Normal School and its associated model schools and reading and speech clinics where hundreds of teacher - trainees have observed classes. All the top positions in the primary teachers’ organisations have been held by Mr Cartwright. He was president of the North Canterbury Headmasters’ Association in 1940, president of the North Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute in 1940 and in 1950, elected to the Dominion executive in 1943 and was Dominion president in 1946-47. Elected teachers’ representative on the Canterbury

University Council in 1943. he has been a member continuously ever since. He was chairman of its various committees at different times, chairman of the council from 1951 to 1954 (during which time it was decided to move to Ham), and he was a Canterbury member of the Senate of the University of New Zealand from 1950 to 1959. Chairman of the university's high school committee when it handed over to the tew Post-primary Schools’ Council in 1947. Mr Cartwright became chairman of the new body which was then unique in New Zealand. He has led the council in planning all the new high schools of Christchurch and in overcoming the classroom shortage. In 1949 Mr Cartwright was invited by the National Education Association of America to visit the United States and represent New Zealand at several international seminars on a Fulbright grant. In 1954 he was a delegate to the quinquennial congress of the Universities of the British Commonwealth at Cambridge ■and later attended the conference of the World Organiisation of the Teaching Profession at Oxford. On a Carnegie travel grant he later made an educational tour of Canada and the United States. From 1941 to 1948 he was a member of the Teachers’ Superannuation Board and continued for another six years as education services’ representative on the amalgamated Government Superannuation Board. For these long and varied services to primary, postprimary, and university education, Mr Cartwright was awarded the 0.8. E. in the 1960 New Year honours.