PERSONAL ITEMS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 99, 25 January 1928, Page 10

PERSONAL ITEMS

The Minister of Health (Hon. J. A. Young) will return to Wellington today.

The death occurred on Saturday at New Plymouth of Colonel John Ellis, aged 87. He was keenly interested in the civic administration of the borough, and the last survivor of the first borough council there. He was born at Liverpool, where, in 1858, he joined the 53rd Regilnent, now the Shropshire. He was transferred as sergeant to the 43rd Regiment, a detachment of which left England for New Zealand in November, 1863, on board the Silver Eagle. Three days after his arrival Colonel Ellis became ill, and was moved to Tauranga, where he was appointed to the charge of the Post Office. He took his discharge in 1866, and entered the service of the late Mr. William Haise, solicitor, New Plymouth, with whom he served for sixteen years. For the next twenty years Colonel Ellis worked with the late Hon. Oliver Samuel, and in 1902 joined the firm of Messrs. Govett and Quilliam. While on military duty in Auckland Colonel Ellis joined the United Service Masonic Lodge. Colonel Ellis is survived by a family of seven, of whom two, Mrs J. Harie and Mrs. H. R Russell, live in Wellington. Messrs. William Wallace (Auckland), J. H. McCarroll (Aratapu), J. B. Andrew (Napier), F. Gillanders (Hawera), and W. E. S. Knight (Dunedin) are in Wellington in connection with a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Hospital Boards Association. Mr. L. D. Austin, formerly director of music at .the De Luxe Theatre, and now of the Octagon Theatre, Dunedin, will assume the conductorship of the orchestra at the Paramount Theatre next week vice Mr. W. G. Hill. Sir Dyce Duckworth, Bt., M.D., the eminent plivsician, who died in London on Friday last, was medical advisor to the late King Edward for a number of years. He was appointed a Knight of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem bv Queen Victoria on May 31, 1892, anil had been an active supporter of the St. John Ambulance Association and its Red Cross auxiliary for over four decades. Sir Dyce Duckworth was well known to the officials at St. John’s Gate, London, during the Great War and was contemporary with Sir John Furlev, the famous authority on Red Cross ’work, under the aegis of St. John. Mr. A. Gough, manager of the Overseas Farmers’ Co-operative Association, is saliing by the Oronsay to consult the board of Australian producers, says a Press Association message from London. He "ill visit all the States and also New Zealand.