DEATH OF DR. LEES

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 92, 12 January 1929, Page 9

DEATH OF DR. LEES

ARCHBISHOP OF MELBOURNE

SUDDEN COLLAPSE FROM HEART DISEASE

Rielbourne, January 11. The death occurred suddenly yesterday of the Most Rev. Harrington Lees, Archbishop of Melbourne. He was recently married in England, from where he and his wife had only recently returned. He had been confined to his bed for several days 'with influenza, but had not seen a doctor until yesterday morning. The Archbishop was having lunch with his wife when he' collapsed, all attempts to revive him failing. Death was due to heart disease, from which he had suffered for many years. He was formerly a prominent athlete, and strained' his heart during his university career. He had just made an appeal for peace in industry, which is attracting a good deal of attention.

ASHES TO BE SENT TO ENGLAND (Rec. January 11, 11.35 p.m.) Melbourne, January 11. Dr. Harrington Lee’s body is to be cremated and the ashes to be returned to England with the widow. . The Most Rev. Harrington Clare Lees, M.A., was vicar of Swansea, in Wales, when in August, 1921, he accepted the Archbishopric of Melbourne. Some years previously, when Bishop Langley resigned the See of Bendigo, Dr. Lees had been offered the vacant post, but he declined it on the ground that he had only recently become vicar of the Swansea parish. The late Archbishop, who completed his fifty-eighth year in March last, received his education at Leys Schools, Cambridge, where he 'was head and senior prefect; thence he went to St, John’s College, winning a classical scholarship there. Later he proceeded to Ridley Hall, and read for orders under the present Bishop of Durham, the Right Rev. Hensley Henson. He graduated at Cambridge in 1592, and was ordained to the curacy of St. Mary’s, Reading, in 1893. His scholastic career was a bril-

liant one, as, in addition to winning the classical scholarship at St. John’s, he won the Greek Testament prize, and took the second-class in the theological tripos at Ridley Hall. In 1894 he was ordained priest. From 1895 to 1897 he was chaplain at Turin, Italy, and. afterwards became curate of Childwall, Lancashire. In 1900 he was promoted to the incumbency of St. John’s, Kenilworth; in 1906 he was selected as a member of the special mission for the deepening of spiritual life in South Africa, and after his return to England he' became vicar of Christ Church, Beckenham. This appointment he held for twelve years, until he took the incumbency of the Swansea parish, the largest in Wales.- consisting of 25,000 persons and a fine church, almost a cathedral. When he was appointed to the archdiocese of Melbourne he was consecrated on November 1, 1921, by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of London, St. David’s, Rochester, Hereford. Bristol, Chelmsford, Worcester, Archbishop Lowther Clarke, and Bishops Taylor Smith and Lander. He was enthroned as Lord Archbishop of Melbourne and Metropolitan of Victoria in St. Paul’s Cathdral at Melbourne on February 15, 1922. . Dr. Lees wrote a number of theological books, including “When Jesus Came,’’’ published in 1909, “The King’s Way (1910), “Christ and His Slaves” (1911) “God’s Garden and Ours” (1918), “Failure and Recovery” (1919), and a number of other works. He was -first marred in 1895 to Miss Winifred Cranswick, a daughter of the late Rev. J. M. Cranswick, D.D.. vicar of St. Paul’s, Stayley. His second marriage took place at St. Margaret’s. Westminster, on April IJ, 1928. the bride being ISliss Joanna Kinnell, elder daughter of Mr. Herbert Lionel. of Beckenham, Kent.