WAR CABINET

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 136, 10 June 1943, Page 3

WAR CABINET

HON. W. PERRY, M.L.C.

NEW APPOINTMENT

The Hon. W. Ferry, M.L.C., president of the New Zealand Returned Services' Association, will be recommended to the Governor-General for appointment to the War Cabinet, the Prime Minister (Mr. Fraser) announced this afternoon.

The recommendation is that Mr. Perry should take the seat in the War Cabinet as Minister of Armed Forces and War Co-ordination left vacant by the death of the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates.

Mr. Perry, who was re-elected for his ninth term as president of the N.Z.R.S.A. at last month's conference and has been a prominent barrister and solicitor in Wellington for many years, was born at Waimea, Westland, in 1885. Later he came to the Wellington district, and in 1899 won an Education Board scholarship while a pupil of the Paraparaumu School. That meant two years' tuition at the Wellington College (in 1900-1901). He attended lectures at Victoria College during the next two years, and graduated as an LL.B. in 1907 at the age of 22. He was a member of the Wellington Kugby Football Union committee.

from 1908 to 1914; from then until 1915 he was a member of the executive of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union. At the same time he was a member of the Eastbourne Borough Council, resigning from that body in 1915 to proceed on active military service. He served in France for three years and three months, and was wounded in action, losing his right arm. His return to civil life found him none the less active. He was elected president of the Wellington Returned Soldiers' Association in 1920-21 and 1921-22, and in 1935 was elected Dominion president of the R.S.A., succeeding Major-General Sir Andrew Russell in that office. In 1934 he was appointed to the Legislative Council. In 1936 he was elected president of the recently revived New Zealand Defence League which was largely responsible for reviving the principle of compulsory military training in New Zealand and for its subsequent adoption as -a war measure. Soon after the outbreak of the present war he was appointed a member of the Defence Council which acted in an advisory capacity to the War Cabinet until it was superseded by the formation of the War Administration.

In addition to holding many other appointments Mr. Perry during various periods wai chief of the Savage Club, president of the Wellington branch of the Navy League, president of the Wellington Bowling Centre, and a member of the executive of the former United Political Party, and of the N.Z. Trotting Executive.