OBITUARY Miss A. Merton

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31657, 18 April 1968, Page 2

OBITUARY Miss A. Merton

Miss Agnes G. S. Merton, who was well known in education and community service, lost her life in the Wahine disaster. She was born in Christchurch in 1889 to a family active in the city’s educational and cultural life. Her brother is a well known religious writer, the author of “Elected Silence” and other works. Their home in Cambridge Terrace was the site of Mrs A. J. Merton’s small private school, where Miss Merton took her first lessons, and her father held music classes. From there Miss Merton began classes at Mrs Bowen’s school in Armagh Streel when she was 10. She matriculated and continued her education at Christchurch Girls’ High School, where she gained a Junior University Scholarship. In 1907 she entered the University of Canterbury. She

was awarded a special scholarship in German in 1909, and graduated with a B.A. in languages a year later. After a year as a governess she attended a training course for teachers at the Auckland Diocesan High School and be gan her long teaching career at Rangi-Ruru Presbyterian School for Girls. Two years later Miss Mer ton decided to train as a high-school teacher. She spent a year at the Christchurch Teachers’ Training College, then was appointed to Nelson Giris’ College, which she left in 1919 to travel to England with her mother. For a year she taught at a girls’ country school in Dover, before returning to New Zealand to take up a position with the Christchurch Girls' High Scnool from which illness forced her to resign. In 1923 she went to Australia and was engaged in social welfare work for the Y.W.C.A. in Melbourne before being appointed headmistress of a Presbyterian girls’ school at Berwick, Victoria. When she returned to New Zealand several years later, Miss Merton became language mistress at the Palmerston North Girls’ High School. In 1931 she returned to the Christchurch Girls’ High School, where she taught, specialising in history, until her retirement in 1947. Miss Merton continued to lead an active life after her retirement, and the North Canterbury branch of the Red Cross claimed much of her time.

She was an organiser for the Junior Red Cross, chairman of the North Canterbury ■Tun’or Red Cross Council for several years, and a member of the New Zealand Junior Red Cross executive. She maintained her interest in the Christchurch Civic Trust and in music until her death.