Moderator Of General Assembly Installed

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31206, 2 November 1966, Page 11

Moderator Of General Assembly Installed

i “The Press” Special Service WELLINGTON, Nov. 1. ! The Rev. S. C. Read, LL.B., i minister of St. Andrew’s I Church, Wellington, was inI stalled as Moderator of the j General Assembly of the I Presbyterian Church of New Zealand in Wellington today. Mr Read was born in In- ' vercargill in 1905, and edu- ; cated at the Hornby Primary School and Christchurch Boys’ J High School. He graduated i with the degree of bachelor of j laws at the University of ■ Canterbury in 1927, after I which he practised as a solicitor for seven years.

He began studies at the I Presbyterian Theological Hall lin Dunedin in 1935, and was licensed by the Waikato Presbytery in 1937. Two years later he completed the bachelor of divinity degree at the Melbourne College of Divinity. Mr Read was ordained and inducted as the minister of East Taieri in 1938, and in 1940 he enlisted as an Army ■chaplain to go to the Middle East and Italy, where he served until the middle of 1944. In that year he was appointed Commissioner for the New Zealand National Patriotic Fund Board in England, and be was stationed in London until 1946. While there he directed the board’s activities for New Zealanders serving in the armed forces.

He returned to New Zealand in 1946 to be assistant minister of St. David's Church, Auckland, with special responsibility for work among former servicemen. In 1949 he was called to Onehunga, and in 1955 to St. Andrew's in New Plymouth. In 1964 he went to St. Andrew's, Wellington. While in Auckland he was clerk of the Auckland Presbytery for five years. Mr Read has been clerk of

the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand since 1955, he has served on a large number of its committees, and is convener of the Book of Order committee and the Legal Committee on Church Union. He is also a member of the board of Church Property Trustees. Other organisations to which he belongs are the Inter-Church Council on Public Affairs, the Wellington branch of the National Council of Churches, the St. Andrew’s Hostels Trust Board, the Women Students’ Hostel Society, the University Chaplaincy Board, and Queen Margaret College, where he is both chaplain and a member of the board of governors. His main outside interest has been the Rotary Club, and he has been a member of the Mosgiel, Onehunga, New Plymouth and Wellington clubs.