Governor-General Of Guyana Killed

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32143, 12 November 1969, Page 23

Governor-General Of Guyana Killed

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

LONDON, November 11. Sir David Rose, the Governor-General of Guyana, was killed yesterday when scaffolding on the frontage of a Whitehall building collapsed and fell nine storeys on to his limousine.

The accident occurred outside the Whitehall Court, in the heart of the British Government’s administrative area. Sir David Rose’s personal assistant, Mr Paul Middleholzer, was taken to hospital suffering from multiple injuries. The Governor-General's son and his chauffeur were treated for shock and released.

Sir David Rose was in London to take leave of the

Queen: he was due to give up his post in February, when Guyana becomes a republic.

Himself a Guyanese, Sir David Rose, who was 46, became Governor-General of his country in 1966. He was educated in Britain, and when war broke out he joined the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, in which he was a captain. When he left the Army in 1948 he joined the Colonial Police, and his first posting was back to his own country, then the colony of British Guiana, where his English wife had a medical practice. The son of a doctor who was an authority on leprosy. Sir David Rose used to sing in the local choir, and even after he became GovernorGeneral, with a knighthood bestowed on his appointment, he still sang at charity concerts. Queues of Guyanese today filed slowly into the compound of Guyana House, the Governor-General’s official residence in Georgetown, to sign a condolence book. Memorial services were held in St George’s Cathedral and the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. . Government sources said that the Governor-General’s body would be flown to Georgetown for a State funeral after an Inquest in London.