NEW PUBLIC TRUSTEE

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 134, 2 March 1921, Page 4

NEW PUBLIC TRUSTEE

MR. J. W. MACDONALD APPOINTED

The Prime Minister (Right Hon. W. F. Massey) announced yesterday that the Public Trusteeship, rendered vacant by the death of Mr. R. Triggs, had been filled by the appointment by Cabinet of Mr. J. AV. Macdonald, for some years past Assistant Public Trustee. The new' Public Trustee is the son of the late Mr. Janies Macdonald, for many years a resident %f Timaru. He was born in Christchurch in 'SSS, but was brought up and educated at Timaru. In the State School there be won junior and senior scholarships, heading the lists on each occasion. .After leaving school he engaged in Press work for a time, and left that employ to take up a position in the Jus-lice Department, where he rapidly qualified for the legal profession. In 1906 he left the Justice Department for the Public Trust Office, taking up a clerkship in the legal division. His facility in that work was such, that the following year saw him appointed to the position of Assistant-Solicitor to the Office. On the retirement of Mr. F. J. Wikon, in 1909, Mr. MacDonald succeeded, to the position of Solicitor to the Department. That position he held until the reorganisation of the staff in 1917, when lie was made one of two Assistant Public Trustees (under the late Mr. Triggs), and a member of the Board of Administration. In that position he had charge of the Legal, Mills, trust, and Agency Division, the Native Division the Mortgage and Investment Division, tho War Regulations Division (enerav firms and property), and was also a member of the Finance, Legal, and Claims Committees of the board and a member of the Lending Board of the State Advances and Public Trust Departments. He was also a member of tho hoard which was concerned (in the interests of New Zealand) in matters embodied in the Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain-le-Haye. Mr. Macdonald was three times returned as a member of tho Public Service Superannuation Fund Board by con tnlm tore to the fund, and was for a time editor of the ‘ I üblie Service Journal.”