GOLDEN JUBILEE

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 301, 16 September 1936, Page 8

GOLDEN JUBILEE

Oddfellow’s Long Service GRAND MASTER A. BLAIR This evening at the Oddfellows’ Hall, Clyde Quay, Mr. Arthur Blair, who has done signal service for the Manchester Unity of Oddfellows in Wellington, and has had a long career as an officebearer, and present Grand Master for New Zealand, is to entertain the members of the various lodges (17) in the district and their wives in celebration of his golden jubilee as an Oddfellow. When Mr. Blair joined the Loyal Antipodean Juvenile Lodge, M.U., at 14 years of age, there were only the two Oddfellow lodges in Wellington city. There were no juvenile Oddfellows before his time. An announcement had been made that a juvenile branch was to be established in connection with the Loyal Antipodean Lodge, and of the boys who joined up on September 16, 1886, Mr. Blair was the first to be enrolled. That ceremony took place in the old Oddfellows’ Hall on Lambton Quay, (where the T. and G. Building now stands). Mr. Biair, throughout a very active life, has always been a keen Oddfellow, with a love for administrative work, as his. lodge career shows. Mr. Blair became an adult Oddfellow in 1890, and it was not long before he passed through the various offices. In 1922 he was elected a trustee of the Loyal Antipodean Lodge and that same year he became a trustee of the ■Wellington District Widows’ and Orphans’ Fund. In 1923 Mr. Blair was appointed a member of the District Management Committee, and in 1925 he became Grand Master of the Wellington district At the movable conference in Nelson in 1924, Mr. Blair was elected a Grand Trustee; in 1933 he was elected Deputy Grand Master for New Zealand, and last yea r he gained the highest possible office, that of Grand Master of New Zealand. In 1934, in company with P.G.M. Bro. John McLeod, of Auckland, and G.S. Bro. A. G. Shrimpton, he attended the London conference. What is remarkable about Mr. Blair’s connection with Oddfellowship is that throughout the half-century he has never drawn a sixpence by way of sick pay.