DEATH OF MR. J. C. WILKIN. A VETERAN NEWSPAPER MANAGER.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 148, 19 December 1907, Page 8

DEATH OF MR. J. C. WILKIN. A VETERAN NEWSPAPER MANAGER.

IBT TELECHArH — I'EESS ASSOCIATION .J CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. A cable from Paris states that Mr. j James Clunie Wilkin, manager of the Lyttelton Times, died there yesterday. He underwent an operation on 6lh December. The late Mr. Wilkin was on a holiday visit to the Old Country, and was ex-, pected back in January. fUr TKLEGBArn.— Special to The Post.} " CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. When the Lyttelton Times proprietary was formed into a, company in 1893 the late Mr Wilkin was appointed manager. He possessed a considerable inteieet in the paper, and was a man universally esteemed by the large staff, who regard his death as a personal lass. Mr. Wilkin took practically no pait in public affairs, but was always associated quietly with every movement for the advancement of Canterbury and the Dominion. He was a generous, charitable citizen, a man of strong domestic ties, and was respected and esteemed throughout the community. ! t He leaves a wife and family of ten — ] hix eons and four daughters. His wife and two unmarried daughters were with him at the time of death. Other daughters aro : Mrs. R. G. Thomas, wife of the Supreme Court Registrar in Auckland ; and Mrs. Dr. Cook, Masterton. Mr. G. Wilkin, a son, resides in Palmers tori North ; tho other sons are all resident locally except Mr. J. Wilkin, who is an officer on a China steamer. The late Mr. Wilkin was born in London in 1843. He came to the colony with his parents in the ship Travancore, which .irrived in Lyttelton in 1851. He entered the office of tho Lyttelton Times — the oldest newspaper in the province — in 1857, since which he- had been continuously associated with tho paper, for some twenty-five yejrs as manager. •'From galley-boy to manager" was Mt. Wilkin's march of progress. Ho joined the Lyttelton Times when the first printing press wns set \ip on the shores of tho Port. Settlement went over the hill, and, of course, the paper followed the movement of population. The tiny sheets were enlarged and multiplied in time, and the office grew. The journal is really tho ChristohuTch Times, but Iho old name was retained. A few months ago Mr. Wilkin's conclusion of fifty years' service was properly honoured, and on that day he could look back proudly on tho part w hich he ' h.id played during half a century in building up such a largo business as tho Lyttelton Times Company now controls, lie whs a, man who did not aspire to public life. As far as tho mail in tho street was concorned, his only acquaintance with Mr. Wilkin was the little imprint on the daily paper — "Printed and published by James "Cluuie Wilkin, of Carllon Millload, Merivalo, for the Lytlclton Times j Company, Ltd."

The first application in the Wellington Land District for tho purchase of the fieohold under the Land Laws Amendment Act, 1907, came before tho j Land Board to-day, when Mr. W. J. Coulter applied to purchase section 56 of the Iloirow henna Village Settlement. All the board could do was to point/ out to him (he steps that had to be taken to curry out his design. Mr. 11. E Radcliffe, secretary of the Boards of Examiners under the Mining Act and the Coal Mine 3 Act, returned from the West Coast last night.