Land-Purchase Officer Is Also Maori Chief

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30940, 22 December 1965, Page 12

Land-Purchase Officer Is Also Maori Chief

Mr L. E. M. Grice, who Is well known in Christchurch. Otago. and Southland, will succeed Mr A T. Bell as chief land purchase officer of the Ministry of Works in Wellington. Mr Bell, who was in the Public Service at Christchurch for many years, will retire at the end of this year, after 40 years’ service. Mr Grace's great-grand-father. the Rev. T. S. Grace, was the first Anglican missionary sent to the Taupo district. Through his grandmother. Mr Grace is descended from a line of Maori chiefs, and ranks today as the leading chief of the Ngati-Turangi, a branch of the Tuwharetaa tribe whose territory is around Lake Taupo. Mr Grace was educated at the Christchurch Boys’ High School, and graduated master of commerce from Canterbury University College. He joined the Public Trust Office at Timaru in 1933- came to its Christchurch office in 1936. and in 1946 transferred to the land-purchase branch of the then Public Works Department. Mr Grace was appointed land-otirehase officer of the Ministry of Works at Dunedin

in 1955. He was in charge of such work in Otago and Southland until 1964, when he became assistant to the chief land-purchase officer for the Ministry of Works in Wellington. Mr Beil's Career Mr Bell was born at Greymouth. but spent most of his youth in Christchurch, beginning as a drafting cadet with the Lands and Survey Department in 1925. In 1939. he began landpurchase work with the Housing Department (now the Housing Division of the Ministry of Works). His responsibilities embraced the South Island, except for parts of Nelson and Marlborough. From 1948 to 1956, Mr Bell was district land-purchase officer with the Ministry of Works in Wellington, with responsibility for land purchase in the lower part of the North Island and the northern areas of Nelson and Marlborough. He has held his present post in Wellington since 1961. Between 1925 and 1934. Mr Rell played Rugby in Christchurch for Linwood and Christchurch West High School Old Boys and cricket for the latter.