LONG RECORD OF SERVICE

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 70, 16 December 1937, Page 24

LONG RECORD OF SERVICE

Canon Mortimer Jones To Go To Waipukurau

Dominion Special Service. Hastings, December 15. ' After eleven years’ service in Hastings parish Canon C. Mortimer Jones will take up his duties in the parish of Waipukurau toward the end of February. For some time Canon Mortimer Jones has been anxious to secure a country parish, and before leaving for England last antumn he asked the bishop if he could have •a country parish. Soon after his return the offer of the parish of Waipukurau was made by the board of nominators of the diocese of Waiapu, and acceptance of this offer by Canon Mortimer Jones was announced to-day. Coming to New Zealand with Bishop Neligan for backblock mission work in the Bay of Islands, Canon Mortimer Jones for four years laboured at Waimate North, I-lokianga, Russell and JCawakawa. He succeeded Archdeacon Willis as vicar of. Cambridge in 1912, and there had a very successful ministry for thirteen years, taking a prominent share in the formation of the diocese of Waikato as a member of the provisional committee. In November, 1926, he was offered the parish of Hastings, and in the following January he took over St. Matthew’s parish. In 1930 he was appointed canon of Na-, pier Cathedral. He has been a member of the standing committee of the diocese for many years and also on the board of nominators.

Canon Mortimer Jones has had an unusual military record.. He received his commission in 1909 as chaplain to the 3rd Auckland Mounted Volunteers, and was later chaplain to the 16th~Waikato Regiment at Cambridge. When the war broke out in 1914 he was in England on holiday, and was unsuccessful in an effort to enlist in Kitchener’s army. In the following year he returned to New Zealand and enlisted as a digger at Wellington Town Hal), having been rejected on account of eyesight as chaplain. He left with the 25th Reinforcements in June, 1917, and was in France until 1918 and then in Germany, first with the 3rd’ Canterbury Jfhgimcnt and later with the Ist Wellington Regiment. For part of that time he was under Colonel H. Holderness.