In the Public Eye

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 135, 10 June 1933, Page 23

In the Public Eye

One of the most prominent names in the list of King's Birthday Honours which was published during the past week was that of Sir Frederick' Field, Admiral of the Fleet, who received Knight Grand Cross of. the Order of the Bath. The Admiral, who was already a Knight Commander in tho Order, is also a Knight Commander of St. Michael and St. George. He commanded tho Special Squadron whicli visited tho Dominions in 1£24-2u, and was promoted to tho rank of Admiral of the Fleet a few months ago. The vacancy was caused by the retirement of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Oliver. Admiral Field) who will be sixty-three next April, has served nearly half-a--eentury in the Navy. As a lieutenant he was landed for active service in China during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, among his comrades-in-arms being Admirals Jellicoe, Bcatty, and Kcyes. At the Battle of Jutland he com-' manded H.M.S. Monarch, and subsequently became Chief of Staff to Admiral Sir Charles Madden, Second in Command of the Grand Fleet. Early in 1918 he went to the Admiralty as Director of .Torpedoes and Mining. Since that date he has been in continuous employment, holding in succession the appointments of Third Sea Lord, Admiral Commanding the Battle Cruiser Squadron, Deputy Chief of Naval Staff, Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, and, finally, First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff. In 1924-25 Admiral Field commanded the Special Squadron, consisting of the Hood, Bepulse, and five light cruisers, which, in the space of ten months, steamed round the world, visiting practically every British Dominion and Colony. Miss A. E. F. Horniman. Early next October Miss Annie Elizabeth Fredcricka Horniman will be seventy-three years old. This month, after a life-time of work for one of the most flourishing of modern arts, she has at last been given some official recognition of what she has accomplished. *j.lp?4,.Horniniau. was-born at • Forest Mill, .-•Kent, ■ her father being the late Mr. Frederick John Horniman and her mother Rebecca Horniman, nee Emslie. According to ■■•her own note on her career, in "Who's Who," Miss Horniman ;■ {'observed her elders in early youth and by,their disapproval became interested in theatres and the suffrage " Sho was educated at the Slade School under Professor Legros, and it was to the advancement of the theatre that most of her later life was devoted. She embarked on the study of astrology and (almost simultaneously) the production of plays at the Avenue Theatre. Here she met with a failure that sho afterwards described as "most fruitful." It was ten years before she became associated with the first great enterprise which was to write her name indelibly in the history of the English stage—even though she had to go to -Ireland to do it! She had been private secretary to William Butler Teats and when sho opened the Abbey Theatre, in Dublin, it was to find a different reception from that which greeted Shaw.'s "Arms and the Man," which she backed ■at the Avenue Theatre a decade before. This now venture was to establish tho Irish literary theatre. G. W. "Russell, Yeats, and the actors W. G. Fay and Frank Fay were behind the enterprise from the start, and' with the accession of J. M. Synge v tho,'.movement received the greatest impetus. Synge founded no school and ..left works in a richly imaged speech which is dangerous to the imitator, ,but his tragic imagination, Lady Gregory's comic Jjifts, and the little less brilliant genius of Padraic Colum made a formidable combination. • The venture was directly responsible for the dramatic work of these'three as well as that of Lennox Robinson, Lord Dunsany, T. C. Murray, and St. John. Ervinc, and tho movement flared tip finally in the genius of Scan O'Oasoy. In 1907 Miss Horniman had turned her face again homeward. She used the Manchester Midland Theatre to produce Charles McEvoy's "David," and the following year purchased tho Gaiety Theatre, Manchester, there to endow a rich strain of English drama. Tho great period of the Gaiety was from 1908 to 1914, and in that time it attracted the widespread attention of critics and authors, enlisted the services of young players and producers who afterwards became leading figures of the stage, and gave the name "Manchester School" a meaning in the world of- drama. McEvoy, Allan Monkhouse, John Masefleld and Stanley Houghton, Elizabeth Baker, and St. John Ervine all found their opportunities in this theatre, .while the works,of Shaw and Galsworthy wore constantly in the programme. Among those who graduated from tho theatre were Sybil Thorndike, Lewis Casson; and Basil Dean. Tho Gaiety closed in 1921 when it was sold to a cinema syndicate. Sir Robert Cassels. General Sir Robert Archibald Cassels, who wns made a Knight of tho Bath in 1927, is now to be a Knight Grand Cross in the Order, it was announced in the King's Birthday Honours List. General Cassels has had an active life in the Army since the Great War, and from 1930 he lias been in the north of India, having charge of the Northern' Command, which guards that country's land frontier. Before that, from 1928, when he became a lieutenant-general, he was Ad-jutant-General in India, and filled tha post' with considerable success. Ha served in the European War and in Mesopotamia, gaining the D.S.O. when a. lieutenant-general. Afterwards he was Major-General of Cavalry in India, and in 1923.was made a Divisional Coinniander. That year he was appointed to command in the Peshawar district, and remained there with his division for four years. He received the Star of India for his services, and in the Honours List of 1927 his knighthood was announced. Four years ago he was appointed Aide-de-Camp to his Majesty the King, in succession to LieuteuantGeneral Sir Andrew Sheen,

A knighthood in ■■ the Order of St. Michael and St. George is to be conferred upon Lieut.-General Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, it was announced in the list "of King's Birthday Honours published last Saturday. Lieut.-Gcn-eral Wauchope was appointed in July, 1931, to the post of High Commissioner in Palestine and High Commissioner of the Transjordan, with which posts went the office of Commandcr-in-Chief in Palestine. Ho succeeded Sir John Robert Chancellor in these offices. Born in 1874, Lieut.-General Wauchope passed from Bepton to a militia coml mission in the Fourth Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, and thence to a regular commission in the Black Watch. Serving on the staff of tho Highland Brigade in the South African War, he was severely wounded at Magersfontein, and won the D.S.O. After the war he was A.D.C. to the. Commander-in-Chief, Cape of Good Hope. A major in 1914, he went to Franco from India with tho Second Battalion the Black Watch, and after being twice wounded, became Comintending Officer in September, 1915, just in time for the Battle of Loos. When tho battalion, was moved to Mesopotamia that winter he led during the battle of Sheikh Saad, where he was again, wounded. Returning in May, 1916, he led the battalion during Maude's advance on Bagdad-until promoted to command the Eighth Infantry Brigade in 1917. After the war he was a military member of the Overseas Settlement Delegation to Australia and New Zealand, and, as editor of the Black Watch history, he was responsible for one of tho best regimental war histories yet produced. He was Chief of the British section of the Military Intqr-AUied Commission of Control in Berlin from 1924 to 1927, and G.O.C. the Forty-fourth Home Counties Division of the Territorial Army from 1927 to 1929. In that year he became G.O.C. the Northern Ireland district. Ths Earl of Elgin. A new Knight of ■ the Thistlo .announced by his Majesty in the last List of Birthday, Honours is the Earl of Elgin. When the Ramsay MacDonald; Government went out of office in 1924 a change was 'necessary iv the High Comniissionership o"f the Church' of. Scotland, and the Earl was appointed to this office, which he held for two years. The Earl is the tenth of his line to hold the title, and is also Baron Bruce, of Torry, Earl of Kincaidie, and Baron EJgin, which is a title of the United Kingdom. He is much interested in public affairs. iThe correct style of the Earl's ecclesiastical office was "Lord High Commissioner td the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland," carrying with it the right of residence at Holyrood Palace during tho tenure of the post. Until the appointment of Mr. James Brown, the Labour member for South Ayrshire, in; 1924, tho office had virtually always been held by a peer, the only previous instance of the appointment of a commoner being that of Sir Thomas Hope, of Craighall, in . 1643, but the old custom .was resumed when the Earl of Elgin was appointed. Lord Elginy who' is 52 years of age this week, -was at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, and has several years of war service to his crodit. He is chairman of the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, has been Grand Master Mason of Scotland, and is a member of the Royal Company of Archers, -which is tho King's Bodyguard'for Scotland. His service during the Great' War■' earned for him a C.M.G., ,won while he was a labour commandant at the front with the rank of colonel.. Prior to that he had been a captain in the Forfar and Kincardine Royal. Gamson ■ Artillery Militia and; 'major commanding the Highland. Royal Garrison Artillery at Fife." In addition he is' convener ana chairman of the -Fife County.Council; chairman of the Educational Endowments Commission of Scotland, and on tho National Council of Juvenile Unemployment in Scotland, He married in 1921) four years after succeeding to the title, a daughter of the.first Baron Cochrane of Cults, and has two sons and'two daughters. Sir Ransford Slater. A new Knight Grand Cross in the Order of St. Michael and St. George, Sir (Alexander) Eansford Slater, whose, elevation within the order was an* nounced last Saturday, has been a Knight Commander-for the past nine years.: He was born : in 1874, ■ being a son of the late Rev.: Ci S. Slater, of Plymouth, and was educated at_ King Edward's School, Birmingham^ and Emmanuel , College, Cambridge. . In 1897 ho was thirtieth wrangler. The following year he entered the Ceylon Civil Service and two years later was, Assistant-Po.stmaster-General. In 190 i he.was'Assistarit-Colonial Secretary, a post which he held for five years. In 1906' ho becamo a District Judge, and after ■' two years in this office was sent to the Straits Settlements on a special mission. In 1910 he became DeputyController of Customs, and by 1912 was Principal Assistant Colonial Secretary. In 1914 he went to the Gold Coast as Colonial Secretary, and at various times was. Acting-Governor. In 1922 he went to SieVra Leone as Governor, and after five years there returned'to the Gold Coast as Governor and Commander-in-Chief. In 1932 he was appointed to be Captain-Gene-ral and Governor of Jamaica, succeeding Sir Reginald Stubbs. He received theC.M.G. in 1916 and the C.B.E. in 1918. In 1906 he married Miss Dora Waterfield, daughter of the late Director of Irrigation in Ceylon, and they have two sons and three daughters. Sir Bansford is a keen golfer and tennis player, and the Governor's house at Kingston, Jamaica,' has been the resort of all sportsmen .who visited this; increasingly popular -spot in the. last 3'ear..