DOMINION REVISITED

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 74, 21 December 1937, Page 13

DOMINION REVISITED

Canon Who Pioneered Mail Service

Dominion Special Service. Auckland, December 20.

Now a canon of Bristol, but once joint proprietor of the first regular mail service between Bluff and Stewart Island in the ’eighties, an officer of the Colonial Bank of New Zealand in the ’nineties, and a prospector and explorer in little-known parts of the South Island in his spare time, Canon E. A. Gowring arrived by the Awatea •to-day to revisit the Dominion after 45 years’ absence. Arriving in New Zealand in 1884, Canon Gowring was associated with Mr. Quinton McKinnon in his search for a pass through the Southern Alps to the West Coast, and it was their duty to name places on a map of the district for the Government.

In tlie early ’nineties Canon Gowring, in association with Mr. J. G. (later Sir Joseph) Ward, and Mr? William Kitchener, brother of Lord Kitchener, commenced the first regular mail service for Stewart Island residents in a boat named the Despatch. After serving for several years as an officer of the Colonial Bank of New Zealand, Canon Gowring returned to England and later took holy orders. In recent years he has also evinced keen interest in local body work, and at the present, time is an aiderman of the Wiltshire County Council, and chairman of the mental hospital committee.

Accompanied by his daughter, Miss M. C. Gowring, he intends to spend some time in New Zealand visiting the districts which he knew more than four decades ago.